Chapter 10: The Morning After the Album
Dawn leaked into Hyukjae’s bedroom not as a sudden shock, but as a slow, greyish seep. It painted the outlines of the furniture—the low dresser, the guitar stand, the two black USB drives sitting like dark pills on the nightstand beside a half-empty glass of water.Donghae swam up through layers of warm, heavy sleep. The first thing he registered was the solid heat of Hyukjae against his back, an arm slung possessively over his waist, breath stirring the fine hairs at his nape. The second was the faint, familiar ache in his muscles, the pleasant residue of yesterday’s hours at the studio, and the long, laughing walk home.He smiled into the pillow.
Hyukjae stirred, his arm tightening.A leg slid between Donghae’s, anchoring him. Then Hyukjae’s lips were on his shoulder blade, a soft press that immediately sent a shimmer of awareness through Donghae’s drowsy body.
“Awake?” Hyukjae’s voice was gravel, muffled against his skin.“Mmm.Getting there.”
Hyukjae shifted. The kiss moved to the knobs of his spine, one by one, a slow descent. Donghae’s breath hitched. He turned his head, burying his face deeper into the pillow, a feeble surrender. Hyukjae’s hand smoothed over his hip, then slid around to his stomach, pressing him back firmly into the solid heat he could feel against him.
The kisses trailed lower, following the dip of his spine. Hyukjae pushed the sheet down, exposing the small of Donghae’s back, the curve of his hip. The air was cool.Hyukjae’s mouth was hot.Donghae trembled.
Then Hyukjae was moving, rolling him onto his back with an easy strength. The morning light caught the sharp planes of Hyukjae’s face, his eyes dark and focused. He didn’t say a word.He just looked at him, a silent question, a confident statement. Donghae’s throat went dry.He nodded, a small, almost imperceptible movement.
Hyukjae bent his head.
His mouth on Donghae’s chest was gentle, then insistent. He mapped the familiar territory with his tongue—the old scar from a dance mishap, the smattering of moles, the taut nub of a nipple that made Donghae arch off the mattress with a sharp gasp. Hyukjae held him down, a firm hand on his abdomen, and continued his descent.He kissed the soft swell of his stomach, the jut of a hip bone. Donghae’s fingers found Hyukjae’s hair, threading through the short, soft strands, not guiding, just holding on.His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs.
When Hyukjae took him into his mouth, it was with a slow, deliberate acceptance that stole the air from Donghae’s lungs. A choked-off sound escaped him, part shock, part pure sensation. It was wet, and impossibly warm, and Hyukjae did it with a lazy, practiced rhythm that was utterly maddening.His tongue did something obscene and perfect. Donghae’s head pushed back into the pillow, his eyes squeezing shut. Bright patterns flashed in the darkness.“Hyuk- ah, God–” The words fractured.
Hyukjae hummed, the vibration shooting straight through Donghae’s core.His thighs trembled. The pleasure was a tight coil, winding hotter and sharper with every glide of Hyukjae’s lips, every subtle suck.He was completely captured, completely exposed. The world narrowed to this bed, this light, this unbearable, beautiful pressure.
Just as Donghae felt the coil begin to snap, Hyukjae pulled off with a soft, wet sound. He crawled back up Donghae’s body, his own need evident, pressing urgent and hard against Donghae’s thigh. He reached for the nightstand, fumbled momentarily, his breathing ragged. The sound of the cap snapping open was loud in the quiet room.He coated himself, then Donghae, his touch rough, efficient. His eyes never left Donghae’s. Then he gripped Donghae’s hips, positioned himself, and sank down in one fluid, breathtaking motion.
Donghae cried out, a raw, unfiltered sound. It was a full, stretching ache that melted almost instantly into a deep, radiant heat. Hyukjae was still for a moment, head bowed, chest heaving.He let out a shaky exhale that was almost a laugh.Then he began to move.
It wasn’t gentle. It was a desperate, driving rhythm, Hyukjae riding him with a fierce concentration that made the muscles in his abdomen stand out in sharp relief. Each rise and fall was a perfect, punishing friction. Donghae gripped his thighs, his blunt nails digging into the hard muscle, anchoring himself as he was rocked into the mattress. The bedframe knocked a dull, steady beat against the wall.Hyukjae’s face was a study in abandon. His lips were parted, his eyes glazed and locked on Donghae’s. Sweat beaded along his temple. He leaned forward, bracing his hands on either side of Donghae’s head, changing the angle, going deeper.Donghae saw stars.
“This,” Hyukjae rasped, the words punched out with each thrust. “This is our song.”
The phrase, spoken now, here, with their bodies joined and the evidence of their other creation sitting mere feet away, shattered something inside Donghae.It wasn’t just about the music. It was about this. The sweat-slick skin, the ragged breaths, the bruising grip, the absolute, terrifying truth of it. This was the unrecorded track, the secret B-side, the sound only they could make.
He came with a broken gasp, vision whiting out, his body bowing up off the bed as pleasure, acute and annihilating, tore through him. He clutched at Hyukjae, pulling him down as he pulsed inside him.
Hyukjae followed, his rhythm stuttering into a final, deep grind as he came untouched between their stomachs with a muffled groan against Donghae’s shoulder. He collapsed, his full weight a welcome burden.
For a long time, the only sounds were their slowing breaths and the distant, waking city.The golden light had strengthened, turning the dust motes into swirling sparks.
Hyukjae finally rolled off, flopping onto his back beside him.Their shoulders touched. Sticky skin pressed together.“So,” Donghae managed, his voice wrecked. “Track thirteen.”
Hyukjae snorted.A hand found Donghae’s, their fingers lacing together. “Master copy only. No digital distribution.”
Donghae laughed, a weak, breathy thing.He turned his head. Hyukjae was already looking at him, his expression soft, sated, open in a way he allowed almost nowhere else. Donghae lifted their joined hands and kissed Hyukjae’s knuckles.
A phone buzzed violently on the nightstand, rattling against the wood.They both flinched. The screen lit up: a manager’s name. The outside world, with its schedules and obligations, was a buzzing insect trying to get in.
Hyukjae sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed to drain the warmth from the room.He didn’t move to answer it.“Later,” Donghae whispered.
“Later,” Hyukjae echoed.But the spell was broken. The light felt too bright now, exposing the rumpled sheets, the discarded clothes, the two USB drives that suddenly looked less like treasure and more like evidence. The silence between them shifted, thickening with the unspoken reality of the day ahead—separate cars, separate schedules, separate faces to wear.
Hyukjae finally swung his legs out of bed, the muscles in his back flexing as he reached for the still-buzzing phone. He silenced it with a tap and sat on the edge of the mattress, his back to Donghae.
Donghae watched him, the intimate landscape of his spine, the dip at the base of his neck.He reached out and traced a finger down that path. Hyukjae shivered but didn’t turn.“Tonight,” Donghae said, not a question. A declaration.Hyukjae glanced over his shoulder, a ghost of his earlier grin touching his lips. “You buying dinner?”
“You cooking it?”
“Depends on your begging skills.”
Donghae kicked him lightly under the sheets.“I’ll bring the new riff. You’ll be begging me.”
Hyukjae stood, stretching, a magnificent silhouette against the window. “We’ll see.” He padded towards the bathroom, and a moment later, the shower started to run.Donghae lay back, staring at the ceiling. The physical memory of Hyukjae’s weight, his words, still thrummed in his veins.Our song. He looked at the USB drives again.They were just objects. The real thing, the messy, breathing, sweating truth of it, was in the next room under a stream of water. And for now, that had to be enough. He threw back the covers, the cool air hitting his skin, and went to join him.