Chapter 7: The Song Can Wait
Hyukjae collapsed beside him, a heavy, boneless weight that pressed Donghae deeper into the mattress. The only sound for a long moment was their synchronized, ragged breathing, slowly evening out into the quiet of the house.The air smelled of sex and lavender, a strange, intimate perfume. Donghae stared at the ceiling, tracing a hairline crack in the plaster he’d known since he was eighteen.His body felt liquefied, every muscle blissfully useless.
“You’re going to need another shower,” Hyukjae finally mumbled, his voice raw. He turned his head on the pillow, his nose brushing Donghae’s damp temple.“You first. You did all the work.” Donghae’s own voice was hoarse, shredded. He winced, touching his throat.Hyukjae laughed, a soft puff of air.“Yeah, well. You were loud.” He shifted, wincing himself as he disentangled their legs. The lotion had dried in sticky patches on their skin.“Come on. We’re a mess.”
The shower was too small for both of them, a fact they’d ignored for years. They stood under the hot spray, shoulders bumping the tiled walls, elbows knocking the shampoo bottles into the basin. Hyukjae methodically scrubbed the dried lotion from Donghae’s stomach, his motions practical now, devoid of the earlier fervor.It felt domestic.Normal. Donghae leaned his forehead against Hyukjae’s shoulder, letting the water sluice over his back.Back in the bedroom, they dressed in clean sweats. Hyukjae dug a Korea Football Association jersey out of a drawer and tossed it at Donghae.“Here. It’s clean.”
It was an old one, soft from countless washes. Donghae pulled it on.It smelled like Hyukjae’s mother’s house, not like him. The realization was a small, sweet ache. They settled on the small couch shoved against the wall, beneath a poster of a second-generation boy band whose faces were now slightly blurred by sun-bleaching. Donghae’s legs were thrown over Hyukjae’s lap, his toes seeking warmth.
Hyukjae reached for a half-empty bag of shrimp crackers from the nightstand, crunching thoughtfully.“We never looked at the song,” he said.
“Was that ever the point?” Donghae asked, plucking a cracker from the bag.
“For my mother’s benefit, maybe.” Hyukjae smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He was looking at the jersey, at the way the fabric stretched over Donghae’s chest. “You look good in my clothes.”
“I always do.”
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, the kind that only existed between them when every possible tension had been thoroughly wrung out. Donghae studied the room—the trophies for dance competitions, the dusty stereo, the familiar landscape of a childhood he’d been a guest in. He’d spent countless nights here, whispering about dreams that felt impossibly big for this small space.
“Do you ever think about it?” Donghae asked, his voice quiet. “How weird it is that we end up here, after everything?”
Hyukjae’s hand rested on his shin, thumb absently stroking the muscle.“What do you mean?”
“This.” Donghae gestured vaguely at the room. “The pond.Your mom’s kimchi jjigae.Us, like this. After Tokyo, after the studio, after the fans and the cameras… we just… fold back into this.”
“It’s home,” Hyukjae said simply, as if that explained the entire universe.“It is.” Donghae paused.“But it’s a secret home. A different one.”
Hyukjae was quiet for a long time. He ate another cracker, chewing slowly.“It has to be,” he said finally, his voice low. “The other home… it’s shared with too many people.It’s loud. This one is quiet. It’s just for us.”
The truth of it settled between them, not as a burden, but as a fact.A protected, precious fact.
“I miss the quiet when we’re not here,” Donghae admitted, the words leaving him before he could filter them. He wasn’t talking about noise levels.Hyukjae’s hand stilled on his leg. “I know you do.” He looked at Donghae then, his gaze clear and direct. “I do too. Even when I’m the one making us busy.”
It was the closest he’d come to acknowledging the frantic scheduling, the solo projects that took him to different cities, the way he sometimes used work as a dam against a tide of things he didn’t want to examine. Donghae heard the apology in it anyway.
“It’s okay,” Donghae said, and he meant it. “We always find our way back to the pond.” He smiled, a little crooked.“Literally, this time. I still have the leech mark.”
Hyukjae snorted, the solemn moment breaking. He pinched Donghae’s calf right where the bite had been.“A souvenir. Your fans would be jealous.”
“They’d be horrified.”
“Same thing.” Hyukjae’s phone, charging on the desk, buzzed once. A calendar notification.Neither of them moved to check it. The outside world was a persistent, low-grade hum just beyond the lavender-scented walls.
“The song,” Hyukjae said after a while, his tone shifting into something more focused. “The one we were messing with in the studio. The melody that was stuck in your head.”
“It’s not stuck anymore,” Donghae said.“I left it in the pond water.”
“Liar. You hummed it in your sleep last night.”
Donghae felt a warmth spread through his chest that had nothing to do with the shower.He’d forgotten that habit. “Did I?”
“Yeah.The bridge part. It’s good.” Hyukjae shifted, gently moving Donghae’s legs so he could stand. He walked to the old desk, rummaged in a bag, and pulled out his tablet.When he sat back down, he opened a simple recording app. A rough, bare melody filled the small room—the piano line from the studio, clean now without the static of frustration.Donghae listened, closing his eyes.It sounded different here. Kinder.“It needs words,” Hyukjae said softly, his eyes on the tablet screen.
“It has words,” Donghae replied, eyes still closed. “They’re just not the right ones yet.”
Hyukjae played the melody again, looping the eight-bar phrase that had haunted Donghae for weeks. Then he began to hum a harmony, low and warm, weaving around the primary notes.It was a thing they did instinctively, a musical fingerprint as natural as breathing. Donghae joined him, softly at first, then with more confidence, finding a third harmony above Hyukjae’s line.
For a few minutes, the room was just that: two voices, one synthesized piano, and the ghosts of their teenage selves listening from the corners. They weren’t composing, not really.They were just existing inside the sound, together.
Hyukjae stopped the recording.The sudden silence felt pregnant.
“Quiet home,” Hyukjae said, as if testing the phrase.Donghae opened his eyes. “Secret home.”
Hyukjae looked at him, a slow smile dawning. It was the boyish, unguarded one that only appeared in places like this.“That’s it. That’s the hook.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah.” Hyukjae set the tablet aside. He didn’t reach for it to write anything down. He just took Donghae’s hand, lacing their fingers together on the worn couch cushion between them.“The words will come. They always do when we’re here.”
The calendar notification on the phone seemed to pulse in the periphery, a silent metronome counting down the hours until they’d have to leave this version of home for the other one.But for now, Donghae let the quiet claim him. He focused on the weight of Hyukjae’s hand in his, the familiar view of the childhood trophies, the faint, sweet scent of jasmine drifting through the cracked window from the garden below. The song was there, between them, no longer a loop of anxiety but a promise.They had today. They had this quiet. They had the infinite, fragile secret of a pond, a leech bite, and a melody finding its words in the dark.
They had the infinite, fragile secret of a pond, a leech bite, and a melody finding its words in the dark. Hyukjae’s thumb was still tracing circles on the back of Donghae’s hand, a silent continuation of their harmony. The quiet stretched, but it wasn’t empty anymore; it was full of a different kind of potential, a charge that had been simmering since the shower, since the massage, since the pond.
“Come here,” Hyukjae said, his voice a soft scrape in the lamplight.It wasn’t a question. He tugged Donghae’s hand, pulling him from the couch until Donghae was straddling his lap on the floor, the worn carpet rough under his knees. Hyukjae’s hands came up to frame his face, his touch reverent. “My beautiful, loud boy,” he whispered, and kissed him.It was a slow, deep kiss that tasted like shrimp crackers and longing. Hyukjae’s hands slid down, under the borrowed jersey, mapping the familiar territory of Donghae’s spine with a tenderness that felt like worship. He broke the kiss to nuzzle into the hollow of Donghae’s throat, breathing him in. “I want to take my time,” he murmured against his skin.“All the time we have.”
He did. He laid Donghae back on the carpet and removed the jersey with a slow, deliberate care that made Donghae shiver. Then his mouth began its journey, a leisurely exploration as if memorizing a new landscape. He kissed the leech mark on his calf, licked the inside of a knee, sucked a bruise into the soft skin of an inner thigh. His hands were everywhere, smoothing, kneading, claiming.
When his mouth finally closed around Donghae’s cock, it was with a devastating slowness that stole the air from Donghae’s lungs. Hyukjae worked him with a patient, lavish attention, his tongue doing filthy, perfect things until Donghae was arching off the floor, his fingers tangled in Hyukjae’s hair. “Hyuk—I’m gonna—”
Hyukjae pulled off just as Donghae peaked, swallowing him down as he came with a choked cry.The pleasure was a sharp, blinding white. Before the aftershocks had even faded, Hyukjae was crawling up his body, kissing the shuddering sounds from his mouth, licking the salty tears from the corners of his eyes.
“Too much?” Hyukjae breathed, his own lips wet and swollen.
“Not enough,” Donghae gasped, already feeling the embers stirring again under Hyukjae’s devoted hands. Hyukjae smiled, a dark, promising thing. He bent his head and took a nipple into his mouth, his tongue circling the tight peak before biting down gently.
Donghae jolted. “Fuck.”
“Just these,” Hyukjae whispered, switching to the other, his teeth grazing with exquisite precision. His hand drifted down, palming Donghae’s reawakening cock with a loose, idle pressure.“You think you could come again? Just from me playing with these?” He pinched both nipples, rolling them between his thumbs and fingers, his eyes locked on Donghae’s face.
The sensation was a direct, electric line to his groin. “You’re—ah—trying to kill me.”
“I’m worshipping you,” Hyukjae corrected, his voice husky. He continued the dual assault, his touch alternating between cruel and soothing until Donghae was a writhing, pleading mess beneath him, cock painfully hard and leaking against his stomach. “Tell me where else,” Hyukjae demanded, his breath hot on Donghae’s ear. “Where else feels like this for you?Your secret places.”
Donghae could only whimper, past coherent thought. Hyukjae kissed his shoulder, his collarbone. “Turn over.”
On his stomach, the carpet fibers pricked his sensitized skin. He felt Hyukjae settle behind him, hands spreading him. The first hot, wet stroke of Hyukjae’s tongue against his hole made him cry out, face pressed into the floor. Hyukjae ate him with a raw, open-mouthed hunger, burying his face there, his stubble scraping the sensitive skin of his inner thighs.Then a sharp, perfect bite on his left cheek, a possessive mark.
Donghae moaned, pushing back against the mouth, the teeth, anything. He was burning up.He felt Hyukjae shift, the blunt pressure of him nudging at his entrance. But a sudden, desperate need rose in him. “No,” he gasped, twisting his head to look back.Hyukjae stilled.
“I want to see your face, Hyuk.” Donghae’s voice was shattered glass. “I want to see you, Hyukkie.”
Hyukjae’s expression softened, something vulnerable flashing in his eyes. He helped Donghae turn over, settling him back onto the carpet before sliding between his legs, their bodies aligning.He entered him slowly, so slowly, eyes never leaving Donghae’s. The stretch was overwhelming, a fullness that went beyond physical.
“I love you, jagi,” Hyukjae whispered, a raw confession punctuated by the slow roll of his hips. “Only you. Only you can make me feel like this.” He began to move, a deep, relentless rhythm that felt less like fucking and more like a heartbeat. Their hands clasped, pinned beside Donghae’s head.
Donghae watched every flicker of ecstasy and love on Hyukjae’s face, and it pushed him higher than any touch ever could. When Hyukjae came, it was with a broken sob, his body shuddering, his release pulsing hot inside Donghae. The feel of it, the sight of him utterly undone, triggered Donghae’s own second, devastating climax, shaking through him with silent, breathless intensity.
Hyukjae collapsed onto him, spent, their sweat-slick chests glued together. Neither moved to separate. Hyukjae’s arms locked around Donghae in a vise-like hug, his face buried in the junction of neck and shoulder. Donghae held on just as tight, his own limbs wrapped around Hyukjae’s trembling back, feeling the slow, deep pulse of him still inside. The tremors in their bodies gradually subsided into a profound, heavy stillness. Hyukjae’s breathing evened out into sleep first, a deep, trusting exhale against Donghae’s skin. Donghae kept his eyes open in the dim room, holding the weight of the man he loved, feeling him connected and vulnerable in sleep, and guarded their quiet, secret home until his own eyelids grew too heavy.
Donghae kept his eyes open in the dim room, holding the weight of the man he loved, feeling him connected and vulnerable in sleep, and guarded their quiet, secret home until his own eyelids grew too heavy.
He woke to the soft, grey light of morning filtering through the blinds and the profound, weightless sensation of being clean. The stale sweat and lotion were gone, replaced by the crisp scent of laundered sheets against his cheek. He was tucked securely under the duvet, his head on a proper pillow, and a solid, warm weight was draped heavily over his waist from behind. Hyukjae’s arm. Hyukjae’s even breath stirred the hair at his nape. A deep, throbbing ache lingered pleasantly in his muscles, a testament to the carpet, the pond, the everything.But the sticky mess was just a memory. Hyukjae must have woken enough to clean him, to move him, to cocoon them both back in bed. Donghae felt so loved in that moment it was a physical pressure behind his ribs, sweet and almost unbearable. He wriggled back infinitesimally, slotting himself more perfectly against Hyukjae’s sleep-soft body, and drifted again.
The next time he awoke, it was to the sound of rain and the smell of garlic and sesame oil. Hyukjae was already up, the space beside him cold. He stretched, the aches blooming again, and pulled on the Korea jersey from the floor.Downstairs, the kitchen was a warm hive of activity. Hyukjae’s mother was at the counter, her back to him, kneading a large bowl of pale dough. Hyukjae stood beside her, chopping spring onions with a focused, rhythmic thock-thock-thock.
“There he is,” Hyukjae’s mother said without turning around.“The Sleeping Beauty. You missed the mixing of the filling.”
“His beauty sleep is crucial, Eomma,” Hyukjae said, glancing over with a soft grin. “Otherwise his fans wouldn’t recognize him.”
Donghae shuffled to the sink, washing sleep from his eyes. “What’s the occasion?”
“Sunday,” the woman said simply, as if that explained the mountain of minced pork and tofu on the table. “And you’re here.That’s occasion enough.Dry your hands and help.”
He did. For the next hour, they fell into a silent, efficient production line. Hyukjae’s mother rolled the dough into perfect circles with a worn wooden pin.Donghae spooned the fragrant filling onto each round. Hyukjae folded and pleated them into neat little crescent moons, his dancer’s fingers impossibly deft. The rain pattered against the window, sealing them in their warm, steamy capsule.“So,” Hyukjae said eventually, his voice casual. “You sleep okay, Eomma? No strange noises kept you up?”
Donghae froze, a spoonful of filling hovering mid-air. Hyukjae’s mother didn’t look up from her rolling.
“My room is soundproof, you know that,” she said, her tone utterly even.“The contractor said it was for resale value. I just appreciated the quiet.” She placed another perfect circle in front of Donghae. “Speaking of creation… did you two manage to create anything last night?Musically, I mean.”
Hyukjae snorted. He leaned towards Donghae, his breath a warm tickle against his ear. “Creating a grandchild, possibly,” he whispered, low and rough.
Donghae’s elbow shot out, catching Hyukjae solidly in the ribs. “Yah!”
Hyukjae doubled over with a grunt of laughter, clutching his side. His mother finally looked up, her eyes dancing between them, a knowing, gentle smile on her lips.Donghae felt his entire face ignite. He glared at Hyukjae, who was still wheezing.
“Well?” Hyukjae’s mother prompted, her smile widening.
Hyukjae straightened up, wiping a mock tear from his eye. He caught Donghae’s furious, blushing gaze and held it, his own expression shifting into something warm and singularly devoted.“Tell her, Hae. Tell her we’ll definitely try to create again tonight.”
“Tell her we’ll definitely try to create again tonight.”
The rain kept falling, a steady whisper against the windows that lasted all through the meticulous folding of mandu and the silent, companionable cleanup. It painted the garden in watery grays and deepened the greens, making the world outside feel soft-edged and distant. When the last container was filled and stored in the fridge, Hyukjae’s mother shooed them from the kitchen with a wave of her towel.“Go.Be loud if you want. The rain is louder.” Her smile was a quiet benediction.
Back in the bedroom, the leftover scent of their earlier bodies was gone, replaced by the clean, damp air from the cracked window.Donghae felt different. The floaty, worshipped feeling from the morning had solidified into a slow, warm current in his veins. He watched Hyukjae pull off his shirt, the muscles of his back moving under skin still marked faintly from the carpet, from Donghae’s hands. A possessive thrill, sharp and sweet, cut through him.“My turn,” Donghae said, his voice low. It wasn’t a question.Hyukjae turned, his eyes widening slightly, then darkening with understanding. A slow smile spread across his face. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Donghae closed the distance between them.He didn’t kiss him. He placed his hands on Hyukjae’s shoulders, feeling the solid reality of him, then pushed gently until the backs of Hyukjae’s knees hit the bed and he sat down. Donghae stood over him, cradling his jaw, thumb stroking the hinge. “I want to take care of you.”
The first time he brought Hyukjae to the edge was with his mouth. He took him deep, all the way, holding him there until Hyukjae’s thighs trembled and his breathing hitched into a ragged whine. Donghae pulled back just before the crest, soothing with his tongue, lapping gently at the head. Hyukjae gasped, his hands fisting in the sheets. “Hae, please—”
“Not yet,” Donghae murmured, kissing the inside of his thigh. He could feel the tension coiling in Hyukjae’s body, a live wire just beneath the skin.The second time was with his fingers. He used the lotion, working Hyukjae open with a focused, gentle precision that was its own form of torture. He crooked his fingers just so, brushing that spot over and over until Hyukjae was arching off the bed, silent now, his mouth a tight line of strained pleasure. Donghae stopped, held still, leaned down to kiss the tense hollow of his stomach. “You feel so good,” he whispered.Hyukjae shuddered, a full-body tremor of frustrated need.
The third time was when he finally entered him. He pushed in, inch by agonizing inch, watching Hyukjae’s face the whole time. The expression of shattered openness there, the absolute trust, made Donghae’s chest ache. He set a rhythm that was pure torment: slow, deep rolls that brushed Hyukjae’s prostate with every stroke, then a sudden, still pause.He did it again.And again. Hyukjae was sobbing, begging incoherently, his nails digging into Donghae’s biceps. Donghae leaned close, their foreheads touching.“Almost, jagi. Almost.” He didn’t let him come.The fourth time was a collaboration of touch and word. Donghae had pulled out, leaving Hyukjae empty and shaking. He whispered things against his skin—not dirty talk, but raw truths.“You’re my home.” A kiss to his shoulder. “My only quiet.” A lick along his collarbone. He took Hyukjae in hand, stroking him in time with his whispers, a tight, perfect friction. Hyukjae’s back bowed, a hoarse cry tearing from his throat as he teetered on the brink.Donghae squeezed, just at the base, and the wave crashed back down unused. Hyukjae collapsed back onto the mattress, utterly spent, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.
Donghae looked down at him, at the beautiful wreck he’d made of the man he loved.His own need was a pounding, urgent thunder in his blood. “One more,” he breathed, sliding back into the heat of him.This time his rhythm had no mercy. It was fast, deep, and unrelenting, each thrust aimed with devastating accuracy. Hyukjae was past begging. He just held onto Donghae, his eyes wide and fixed, as if watching the sun rise.
Donghae felt his own climax rip through him, a scalding, uncontrollable surge that pulled a ragged shout from his lungs. As he pulsed inside Hyukjae, he felt the dam finally break. Hyukjae’s release hit him in hot, helpless stripes between their bodies, his entire frame seizing in a silent, violent convulsion of pleasure. The sound he made was barely human—a choked, guttural release of everything held back. Then his eyes fluttered shut, his grip went slack, and his head lolled to the side, consciousness surrendering completely.
The Donghae Donghae stayed buried inside him, trembling, listening to the frantic drum of his own heart slowly ease. He brushed the damp hair from Hyukjae’s forehead.He was out, a deep, peaceful sleep already claiming him. Slowly, carefully, Donghae pulled out. He fetched a warm cloth and cleaned the mess from Hyukjae’s stomach, from between his legs, his touches softer than moonlight. He covered him with the duvet, then slipped in beside him, gathering Hyukjae’s limp, warm body against his own.The rain was the only sound. He held the weight of his soulmate, feeling the steady breath against his neck, and guarded their secret, quiet home until sleep took him too.