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Myungsoo’s been Dongwoo’s room-mate for a while. But they hardly speak to each other. Friends who visited them often commented how you could probably find two inmates in a prison cell chummier than they were, even if said inmates fought all the time or generally didn’t like each other, because at least they spoke or made some eye contact. Myungsoo and Dongwoo didn’t seem to care at all, to a level that was lower than the bare minimum that anyone would feel socially obligated to feel for a person with whom one shared their apartment flat, and it made people wonder if something had happened between them. Had Dongwoo slept with Myungsoo’s girlfriend? Well, no – such an event wouldn’t have produced this brand of animosity. They were too calm for that sort of thing to have gone down. Did they find out that Myungsoo’s family had an ancestral grudge against Dongwoo’s, but due to some sort of contract, they had to stay together for some reason? Hardly likely. Whatever it was, people decided it was an interesting relationship, though strange as it was, and when the two finally had to converse with each other because they had guests that both of them knew, everyone else always fell silent, listening, wanting to catch anything in their voices which gave something – anything – away.

But nothing ever happened. They were cold but perfectly polite to each other, and the most they’ve heard Dongwoo ask is, “do you want me to get you more noodles from the store?” to which Myungsoo replied “no thank you.”

***

Things didn’t happen too differently behind closed doors.

While they didn’t speak, they did each other’s laundry and cooked for each other. There was some sort of unspoken agreement made some time ago that on the days Dongwoo cooked the meals for the day – that being only lunch and dinner, because they woke at different times, and neither of them ate much for breakfast anyway – Myungsoo would wash the dishes and mop the floor if necessary. Laundry was done every three days and they took turns doing that. Neither of them was too fussed with doing equal amounts. When the toilet needed cleaning they didn’t care who it was who scrubbed it last, they just went ahead and cleaned it. Stripped bare of affections they shared the perfect room-mates’ relationship. Maybe it was just their thing: like how a person was entitled to prefer a strict teacher over a jovial one, maybe, just maybe the duo had found out that they’d rather have zilch to do with each other than to become close and divulge to the other the happenings in their lives when they were out of the flat. It might have been a strange preference to have, but there existed in the world all types of people and there was no saying that it must have been caused by something happening between them, something harsh and mean, to cause such a rift.

At night, though, things did happen a little differently.

***

Myungsoo doesn’t know why they do it, but they do and it always ends with him feeling sore beyond belief. Still it takes his mind off everything that’s going on in his life in very effective ways so he knows he won’t give it up. It’s better than the drugs he’s tried, and he’s tried many. He’s a small-time actor and his friends, all of them in the industry, still counted as newbies just like him, are always telling him how to take the load off, how to lessen the annoyance that works up in his body when the director yells at him.  And normally Myungsoo’s a little smarter than that but when he found that being patient and virtuous got you nowhere he accepted the joints, and now he knew how to roll one up himself. He became used to looking in the mirror and finding himself always grinning for absolutely no reason. Bruises dotting his calves became commonplace in his life and for a few weeks he was teetering dangerously into the abyss of self-degradation, and that’s when Dongwoo stepped in. As an intervention and a diversion.

Their first time was one that Myungsoo could barely remember because the memory had stored itself in a mess inside his head, so that whenever he tried to recall what had happened exactly he only saw it as if he was watching a badly shot movie when clips were cut and pasted together in a non-chronological order that only offered him many scenes of lips mashing together and bodies pressed together in a sweaty heap. In the morning when he woke up and found his room-mate fully undressed with his toned arms around Myungsoo, Myungsoo hadn’t known what to think except that his ass hurt and that Dongwoo looked so perfect like that.

Technically Myungsoo realizes Dongwoo had taken advantage of him. After all he wasn’t thinking properly and was clearly unable to give consent. Myungsoo, before he delved into the entertainment world had done his fair share of studies into the legal system, and remember a few bits and pieces of knowledge, this being one of them. He would’ve confronted him about it, because when he was finally sober and could think straight, the actor couldn’t help but think about how wrong it was for his room-mate to impose himself on Myungsoo like that. It just seemed so wrong, so low, so lecherous. He had been so close to asking Dongwoo what exactly had been going through his mind but then that was when memories of the night before came back in surges substantial enough in their contents to indicate to the younger man that he had done his fair share of encouraging Dongwoo. If it hadn’t been for that, Myungsoo reasoned with himself that Dongwoo might not have gone right ahead with what he did. After all, putting himself in his room-mate’s shoes, that sort of contact was unbearably hot. It embarrassed Myungsoo back then that he had acted so desperately in front of Dongwoo but the part-time rapper never commented on it and soon Myungsoo grew to like the idea that he seemed to be this little play thing for Dongwoo. It was like that one time he got a hell of a thrill out of one of his friends kissing him mid-shot as they hid themselves in the bathroom for “touch-ups” but were really just feeling each other up. My kitten Woohyun had whispered. His breath smelled of cigarettes and oranges and when his fingers brushed over Myungsoo’s ribs beneath his shirt Myungsoo could swear he could taste the tobacco through his skin.

Whether it’s Dongwoo who initiates it or Myungsoo, the outcome is always the same: they never seem to waver from their usual routine when they have sex, but sometimes it gets a little tender and Myungsoo reckons that they’re making love. Dongwoo’s never used the word “fucking” or “screwing” or anything lewd and brusque like that. The whispering he does in Myungsoo’s ear is luxurious and sweet, but that might be because Myungsoo’s always slightly tipsy and everything feels and sounds good. But there’s certainly something gentle and maybe even loving in the way Dongwoo tells him that he’llmake him feel so good he’ll want it every night as he’s stroking him off by the bathroom sink, or assure him that Myungsoo was the most beautiful person he’s ever seen and he won’t ever let anyone else see him like this as he’s sliding into him, thrusts so shallow and teasing it makes Myungsoo want to hit him but nothing’ll make Dongwoo go faster unless he begs.

The transition from stroking each other’s cheek and exchanging all those typical comments you always hear post-sex to the daily happenings of their lives and how they see each other when they’re not naked isn’t an awkward one at all. The moment Dongwoo slips out of his bed – or Myungsoo, whoever – and makes for the bathroom, there’s no more love to be had between them, even if the rapper choose to emerge from a hot shower with his hair tousled and sculpted torso dotted with beads of water. Myungsoo can ignore it for the most part, save for the one time he couldn’t and pressed him against the wall of their living room, sucking him off beneath his towel. To this day Dongwoo hasn’t washed the towel, and it’s sitting on top of their medicine cabinet still, and it’s kind of gross but like so many other things they have not addressed with each other yet agree upon, it’s treated like a bit of a sacred object.

It wasn’t like there was anything on it. It was just a relic of a memory. With Myungsoo swallowing everything Dongwoo was unloading into his mouth, the towel was saved from being soiled, and it was then that Myungsoo thought to himself that Dongwoo tasted better than any drug.

***

Dongwoo has watched Myungsoo as he studied his lines before. But he’s never watched Myungsoo act and Myungsoo’s never seen him rap or dance. Both of them practice while they’re in the flat but when that happens whoever’s not taking centre stage in the middle of the living room barricades himself in his room and closes the door. Whether it’s done out of a politeness to give the other some privacy – to lessen the embarrassment making a mistake brings because they’ve got no spectators anyway – or out of annoyance nobody knows. Having sex didn’t change a thing between them other than their clothes. It hasn’t come to a point where it fazed either of them. They weren’t the type to be emotionally attached to someone they were having sex with but Myungsoo’s thought about it a couple of times because of the roles he plays in small dramas. He wonders if he’s very much in love but if that were so, it didn’t explain why when he saw Dongwoo during the day time he never felt the urge to go and kiss him and ask him how his day was. And even if he did, it seemed to be largely unrequited because the rapper was so collected. Sometimes when he’s chopping carrots and Dongwoo glides by to grab a beer from the fridge Myungsoo wishes he would hold him around the waist and watch him go about being a cook like he had to do to his “wife” in his show about juggling a family and work life. These needy thoughts were what propelled Myungsoo to try and start up conversation when they ate dinner together on the couch, but Dongwoo always gave as short a response as possible and so the actor is discouraged to keeping his mouth shut if he wasn’t chewing.

***

There was one time Myungsoo had brought Woohyun over. His acting friend with the cigarettes and scent of citrus. Dongwoo didn’t know the guy but had said hi anyway and they made small-talk for a while before Dongwoo settled on the couch with his book, using his student card as a placeholder for where he had read up to. It didn’t take long for Woohyun’s touches to escalate to painful, uncomfortable and altogether rushed sex in Myungsoo’s room, and Dongwoo would’ve had to be total deaf to not have heard. Woohyun wasn’t exactly in his right mind, Myungsoo knew. They’d been sitting on top of the covers on his bed and it was raining and grey outside, with light pattering against the small pane of glass he called a window.

“Take a drag,” Woohyun had more or less demanded and Myungsoo did. He coughed and sputtered because the stuff was strong and he wasn’t much of a smoker anyway, and Woohyun had laughed and taken his cigarette back, sticking it between his lips which were dry as hell but somehow still attractive.

“You’re a goof,” he had added and he exhaled, the cloud of smoke making Myungsoo wrinkle his nose, and then Woohyun kissed him, kissed the edge of his lips and there’d been a burn as he seared Myungsoo’s skin with his cigarette but Myungsoo hadn’t complained because Woohyun’s hand was between his legs.

It hadn’t been a nice experience. If he had been any rougher he would’ve ripped Myungsoo apart. Having made the younger man hiss and yelp from the burn of the cigarette – Woohyun knew it was probably painful as hell, but not like he cared to stop – the Nam was horny and eager as ever to fuck Myungsoo and that was what he did. It was during the moments that the bed squeaked beneath Woohyun’s thrusts, the headboard of the bed hitting the wall and Myungsoo’s lips being kissed raw that Myungsoo realized what he and Dongwoo did had to making love. Because if there was sex this harsh and uncaring, surely the way Dongwoo moved into him like Myungsoo was precious was indicative of something. Sex wasn’t nice like this, Myungsoo had thought. No, not with the way Woohyun’s fingers were entwined in his hair and jerking his head to the side as he lapped and bit at the small burns he’d made, or with the way Woohyun had hooked Myungsoo’s leg over his shoulder. The position had pulled a whimper from Myungsoo’s throat, and he tried not to move away from it, the stretch uncomfortable, but Woohyun didn’t give him much space to do so. So he’d beared it and though Woohyun told him later that it was obvious he enjoyed it (and as much as Myungsoo wanted to believe it because he was feeling so low about himself he was certain he didn’t deserve gentle love), he really didn’t. Woohyun had smoked another cigarette in his room, watching Myungsoo with the occasional chuckle as he sat up and inspected the warm stuff running down his leg, Woohyun having pulled out to leave a trail of cum down his thigh and onto his bed sheets. Then they just lay and sat there in silence, until the beep of Woohyun’s phone went off and the smoker was pulling his Levis back on, telling Myungsoo he was a nice screw and that if Myungsoo asked him nicely he’d do it again.

For some reason it had been hard for Myungsoo to walk out of his room to face Dongwoo after that. Woohyun had let himself out and he hadn’t heard what words he’d exchanged with the rapper. If he had heard it, though, it wouldn’t have changed a thing.

“You heard him right?” Woohyun has a smirk on his face that Dongwoo wants to punch off but he doesn’t. He’s not a violent guy and he just smiles tightly in response to the question and turns a page.

“Yeah,”

“He’s got nothing else going for him. Might do better as a prostitute,” another chuckle and Woohyun straightens his shirt. “You fuck him too don’t you? Felt like back there he knew how everything was going to go down,”

Dongwoo doesn’t know whether to admit that yes, he does, or to deny it, so he just shrugs. He’s found nonchalance is always the best way out of a situation. The rapper’s always been into taking the high road and being a better man anyway so he’s used to stamping away at his frustration but somehow this time it feels different. Still, he manages.

“You might want to,” Woohyun continues, oblivious to the way Dongwoo’s actually bristling inside. “You heard how he sounds. It’s what’s keeping him alive.”

***

After Woohyun had left Dongwoo continued reading. It took Myungsoo a good hour before he got himself together and bunched the linen on his bed up to wash, venturing outside with a slight limp. The actor lingered at the doorframe to his room and he watched Dongwoo’s eyes move across the page as he read his book. For what felt like the longest of moments, he’d been absorbed in the dark pools of Dongwoo’s eyes. They’d always been interesting. It was hard to miss the suppressed unruliness in those pupils and whenever they looked at Myungsoo, unbridled, because Dongwoo’s body was slapping against Myungsoo’s in a way neither of them could describe as anything but wild and primal, Myungsoo felt like he was going to explode.

And because they never said a word to each other in the normal course of their relationship Dongwoo didn’t ask why he was just standing there. He didn’t so much as look at him and Myungsoo felt bad for some reason. He dragged himself in slow steps to the tiny laundry room and stuffed his things into the washing machine. Dongwoo didn’t really notice but Myungsoo ran his covers and bed sheets through two cycles and never used them again.

***

They don’t meet each other in bed every night.

It happens, if a trend was to be stated like their portioning of chores, it happens about three times a week and Tuesdays were never just Tuesdays.

Admittedly there are times when Myungsoo just wants Dongwoo to hold him but he thinks that the suggestion of it would make Dongwoo shake his head and leave so he always just lets the rapper have his way so that he gets that cuddle in the end. It’s so pathetic, Myungsoo knows, but there’s nothing better or more secure than being surrounded by Dongwoo and sometimes it’s so warm and soothing that Myungsoo almost cries. He’s not doing well with his acting anymore – he’s got potential but he’s not tapping into it – and his manager keeps threatening him to work harder or he’ll cut all the things he’s in. Myungsoo doesn’t exactly want to become Tom Cruise-famous but he wants to make his own money and not waste the talent he was given. Dongwoo seemed to be doing so well and Myungsoo doesn’t want to be a disappointment even though they barely talk to each other as room-mates.

***

One night when Dongwoo’s the one cooking dinner – vegetable curry, Myungsoo can tell – Myungsoo can’t find where he’s put his script and knows his manager’s going to kill him if he doesn’t have it memorized by tomorrow. There are only three pages for him to go over, he doesn’t have much of an appearance in this next episode, but still he panics even though it’s only six pm and he has ample time. He has a good memory. But he can never find things and he’s never lost many things before either.

He tries not to look like he’s looking for something but it’s not long before Dongwoo’s watching him curiously.

“What are you looking for?” Dongwoo asks when he can’t take it anymore. Myungsoo looks like he could really use some help. He’s handsome and able to keep a very good straight face, but Dongwoo can tell but his movements that he’s bothered.

At first, Myungsoo doesn’t know whether to tell him. He doesn’t want to appear childish. He doesn’t want Dongwoo’s impression of him to crumble. When they were in bed with each other it was a different story: then he could become desperate without feeling ashamed.

“It’s okay,” he dismisses. “It’s probably… probably lost; I shouldn’t be looking for it,”

His voice breaks and Dongwoo furrows his brows. He’s worried, but he doesn’t want to make Myungsoo uncomfortable.

In the end Myungsoo finds it around eight fifty six, beneath all of his old law books. He doesn’t know how it got there.

***

It’s raining again and Myungsoo doesn’t want to think of him, but he thinks of Woohyun. It’s because they’re in his room this time and everything just feels the same. But the intense heat of Dongwoo’s body as he sleeps beside him is a perpetual reminder that he’s safe.

They’re facing each other and although Dongwoo’s shorter he seems bigger than Myungsoo in every way. He’s laid an arm around Myungsoo’s waist and the other is stretched over their heads. The rain had been positively torrential when they were doing it, but now it fell in ceaseless but quiet sheets. Melancholic, Myungsoo thinks. It’s perfect for the mood he’s in, and he smiles a little to himself because he’s invited to a movie premiere tomorrow – he’ll be on the red carpet, getting his photo taken, just like any other celebrity. Woohyun, he heard, had dropped off the radar anyway and when Dongwoo fits his mouth over the tip of Myungsoo’s ear in a surprise kiss Myungsoo swears he’s in heaven. But then Dongwoo’s reaching for his dick and grasping it, stroking him into an erection and it hurts because it’s too soon, but Myungsoo wants to please him.

For the second time that night Myungsoo’s a bit of a shuddering mess. Dongwoo doesn’t try to fix his own hard-on, and he doesn’t urge Myungsoo to do it for him. He just strokes the younger man through his orgasm, milking him clean and then he pulls him close, obviously not caring that Myungsoo hasn’t wiped himself up yet. The actor feels filthy with the sweat gleaming on his skin and the cum that’s forming sticky strings between his body and that of the man he knows he must love, but Dongwoo doesn’t seem to mind in the least. It’s these embraces that Myungsoo really looks forward to, when Dongwoo is so tender with him, not tossing him aside as Woohyun had done, and he finds himself emotional again. He wants to open his mouth and let the confession just undo itself from his tongue, but for God’s sake, Dongwoo’s asleep and it’s not worth it.

***

One of Dongwoo’s regular gym buddies is called Howon, but Dongwoo calls him Hoya. Myungsoo doesn’t know which he prefers but he stays over for dinner one night (Myungsoo cooks) and though they don’t leave him out of the conversation Myungsoo feels as if there’s something between them. He thinks that this must have been the same atmosphere he’d created with Woohyun.

“Do you like him?” Myungsoo asks once Howon’s gone and Dongwoo’s the one washing the plates. It’s strange to hear him speak when they’re not entangled in each other’s limbs and it pleases the older man.

“Hoya?”

A nod.

“Well…,” Dongwoo straightens up from where he is replacing the dishwashing liquid into its container beneath the sink. “Maybe,”

Myungsoo wonders if this is revenge for Woohyun.

If so, it hurts like hell.

***

They don’t sleep together the night Howon visits, but they do after Sungjong does. But they don’t have sex.

Myungsoo’s never seen Sungjong before. Before he did, he had never felt an ounce of inferiority in his body about his visual appearance. Myungsoo was fully aware of how handsome he was but he just wasn’t a braggart about it, but when he met Sungjong, who was younger than even him, a small ball of loathing planted itself at the base of his stomach. As the night went by, the ball swelled into an intense abhorrence that could only be said to have been the product of jealousy, because Myungsoo had barely spoken to the tiny boy yet.

How and where they met was a mystery to Myungsoo, but they seemed to get along well with each other. They weren’t afraid to be affectionate in the open, which only made Myungsoo all the more livid at himself, at Sungjong, and at Dongwoo, for not rewarding him with the same amount of cheeriness.

And for Sungjong was truly beautiful.

That was hardly his fault, Myungsoo knew. It was all a matter of genetics, and Sungjong had hit a bit of a jackpot. Not that Myungsoo could be one to comment on how the person in charge of blessing people with good-looks had missed out him in the favour of making another look all the more marvellous, but he was allowed to feel insecure. It made him wonder if Dongwoo was actually far more into guys who had a petite frame, because if so, Sungjong would get him off much better than Myungsoo did. Or maybe his room-mate, this whole time, had been sleeping around and Myungsoo hadn’t woken up to the possibility of this until now: Hoya, Sungjong, those could just be two names among many, just as Dongwoo was one name next to Woohyun’s and Sungyeol’s.

They don’t do more than attack each other with tickles and elbows to the ribcage, but Myungsoo still feels his heart twist into panging knots at the sight.

It’s why he ignores Dongwoo when he makes his way into Myungsoo’s room and joins him in bed. Instead of turning to meet the full lips of his room-mate as he usually does, welcoming into his arms with his pants already taut over his cock, he lies with his back to Dongwoo. It’s childish, he knows, and totally uncharacteristic of his ice-prince reputation, but he’s willing to forfeit it all – he’s confident now he’s fine with this – if only to be the sole owner of Dongwoo’s heart.

A low chuckle and Dongwoo gives up on trying to turn Myungsoo around so they can kiss and just spoons the guy, nestling his face into the back of the actor’s neck and sniffing at it. The smell and warmth reminds him of baby oil somehow.

“Too tired?” he remarks, even though he knows it’s not exhaustion that’s making Myungsoo reject him so. His lover responds with a grunt, but no distinct words come out of his mouth.

“Okay then,” Dongwoo continues, unfazed. He slides one of his able hands beneath Myungsoo’s shirt and rubs it soothingly over his chest, just letting his thumbs pass over the boy’s sensitive nipples. They don’t do much to get a reaction, but they’re not supposed to – it’s a comforting gesture more than anything else, yet still Myungsoo makes a small twitch.

“I don’t like him like that you know,” the older man murmurs into the skin at the back of Myungsoo’s neck. His fingers are whispering over the elastic of the pants Myungsoo’s pants. “Not like I like you,”

It’s what Myungsoo’s wanted to hear for the longest time but for some reason he can’t accept it. It’s because he feels as if Dongwoo pities him, after all Myungsoo hadn’t done much to disguise his scorn over dinner. Not that Sungjong had picked it up anyway; he was too busy fawning over Dongwoo.

“Nope,”

“Yes,”

“I don’t believe you,”

“Come on,”

“No,”

A sigh, Dongwoo shifts away and Myungsoo squeezes his eyes shut. He hopes he doesn’t leave. He really doesn’t want that at all, he wants to be chased a little to know he’s wanted. It’s a selfish desire but he can’t drop it. He realizes he’s set it up like a final hurdle, one that he desperately wants Dongwoo to jump.

“What’ll it take?” comes his voice. Myungsoo opens his eyes a touch and he peers through the narrow slits at the naked wall before him.

“Do you…,” Myungsoo trails off. He can’t say it and he gnaws on his lip instead, annoyed, frustrated beyond belief that at such a golden moment his gut is failing him. Out of all the times in his life that he could chicken out, he couldn’t see why it had to be now.

“Do I…?”

Dongwoo knows what he wants to ask. But he doesn’t want to spoon-feed him like a child.

Myungsoo gulps and he moves against the bed. There’s an odd prickle across his skin he can’t describe and he decides it’s probably the distance between Dongwoo’s body and his. He recalls every moment he’s opened his mouth in Dongwoo’s presence in the morning-afters and not being able to say a thing, his mouth feeling as if it’s been basted with nail polish or something; he feels so sluggish and gross. Maybe like him, Dongwoo’s setting this up as a last chance, after which they would go beyond the point of no return and they’d just resume their tedious cycle of sex, but the thought of it seems soludicrous. Dongwoo wouldn’t just give up on him like that – would he?

He shouldn’t be taking a gamble with luck, he thinks.

“If you love me,” Myungsoo starts. “If you love me, you’ll just hold me tonight,”

It’s not a demand. It’s more of a challenge, the difficulty of which Dongwoo doesn’t see because it’s not hard for him to do at all. He’s not a raging sex addict. Like any other average guy, he likes his sex, but he doesn’t have this uncontrollable need for it such that he’d push Myungsoo into it. Admittedly on some days he feels as if the actor isn’t entirely there when they do the deed, but he’s never been stopped and Dongwoo doesn’t want to fall short of what Myungsoo anticipates from him.

“I’ll hold you,” Dongwoo reassures his room-mate. He wraps his arms around Myungsoo again and rests his chin on that slightly scrawny shoulder, prominent teeth nibbling against the material of his shirt.

That’s all Myungsoo needs.