Chapter 8: Morning Hunger
Donghae swam up from a deep, black ocean of sleep. The first thing he registered was the pressure, wet and warm and insistent, enveloping him. He groaned, his hips lifting off the mattress of their own accord before his brain had even fully booted. Blinking against the grey dawn light, he looked down the length of his own body.
Hyukjae was there, a dark head between his thighs, mouth working slowly. He looked up, eyes meeting Donghae’s through heavy lashes.He didn’t stop. He took Donghae deeper, a slow, perfect slide that stole the air from Donghae’s lungs. The world narrowed to that heat, to the sight of Hyukjae’s lips stretched around him. Pleasure, thick and syrupy, pooled low in his belly, a direct current from that talented mouth.
Hyukjae pulled off with a soft, obscene sound.His lips were slick and swollen. “You’re awake.”
“How could I not be?” Donghae’s voice was gravel.
“I only came twice last night,” Hyukjae said, his tone matter-of-fact, as if discussing a minor miscalculation. He ran a thumb over Donghae’s leaking tip. “It’s not enough.”
Before Donghae could form a coherent thought, Hyukjae was moving, straddling his hips. He reached behind himself, guiding Donghae’s cock.Then he sank down, taking him inside in one unbroken, breathtaking motion. He was still loose and slick from the night before, from Donghae’s careful fingers, and he sheathed him completely, a tight, molten glove.
A sharp gasp ripped from Donghae’s throat.Hyukjae began to move. Not with the lazy, worshipping pace of yesterday, but with a fierce, driving need. He rose and fell, his thighs tense, the slap of skin against skin a sharp percussion in the quiet room. His head fell back, tendons standing out in his neck.His hands braced on Donghae’s chest, fingers digging in.
“Please me with your thick cock,” he gasped, the words ragged and desperate. His rhythm was punishing, for both of them.
Donghae’s hands flew to his waist, trying to still him, to slow the dizzying ascent, but Hyukjae batted them away. “Don’t.Just take it.”
So Donghae took. He let his head fall back against the pillow, surrendering to the onslaught, watching Hyukjae unravel above him. The controlled, precise dancer was gone.In his place was something raw and starving. Donghae felt the coiled tension in his own body, the gathering storm.He needed more. He needed to leave a mark.He sat up abruptly, catching Hyukjae mid-descent, and leaned forward. He fastened his mouth on one of Hyukjae’s nipples, biting down just shy of true pain, then laving it with his tongue. Hyukjae cried out, his rhythm stuttering. Donghae moved to the other, giving it the same torturous treatment, rolling the tight bud between his teeth until Hyukjae was shaking, his movements becoming erratic.
“Donghae, I’m—”
The broken warning was all he got. The world whited out. Pleasure detonated at the base of Donghae’s spine, a nova blast that surged up and out. He came with a choked groan, pulsing deep inside Hyukjae, his fingers leaving bruises on his hips.
For a few seconds, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing. Hyukjae was still trembling, seated fully on him, his body clenching rhythmically around Donghae’s spent cock.Then he opened his eyes. They were dark, unsatisfied.“Second. Now.”
Donghae, still dazed, acted on instinct. He flipped them, the world tilting, until Hyukjae was beneath him, his legs hooked over Donghae’s arms. He was still buried inside him, soft but present.He began to move again, a shallow, tentative rock of his hips. Sensation, overshot and almost painful, fizzed along his nerves. But he watched Hyukjae’s face, the need there, and pushed deeper.
He leaned down, brushing his lips over Hyukjae’s ear.“You feel so good. You take me so perfectly.” He kissed his jaw. “You’re my everything, my only home.” Each word was punctuated by a deepening thrust.Hyukjae’s breaths came in sharp hitches. Donghae could feel himself hardening again inside that incredible heat, a miraculous resurgence fueled by Hyukjae’s desperate whispers of “more” and “there.”
He shifted, angling his hips, and found the spot. Hyukjae’s back arched clean off the bed, a silent scream on his lips. Donghae set a brutal, fast pace, driven by the sounds being punched from Hyukjae’s throat.This wasn’t worship.This was claiming. This was two men who belonged to each other in every way possible, trying to fuse into one single, inseparable entity before the outside world could wedge itself between them again.
Hyukjae came first, his climax tearing through him with a violence that locked every muscle. His release painted stripes across his own stomach and chest, his cry a raw, broken thing. The clenching, rhythmic vise around Donghae was too much.He followed, a second, deeper wave crashing over him, blurring his vision. He collapsed forward, catching his weight on his elbows, his forehead resting against Hyukjae’s shoulder.They lay there, a tangled, sweaty, spent heap. The stale coffee and dust smell of the room was now definitively theirs, overlaid with sex and salt. Donghae could feel Hyukjae’s heart hammering against his own chest, a frantic echo slowly calming.
After a small eternity, Hyukjae’s hand came up, fingers threading weakly into Donghae’s hair. “You bit me.”
“You taste good.”
Hyukjae let out a shaky laugh that vibrated through both of them. “We have to drive back to Seoul today.”
The sentence landed between them like a lead weight.Donghae didn’t move. “I know.”
“We stink.”
“We do.”
Slowly, painfully, Donghae pulled out and rolled onto his back beside him. The room came back into focus—the peeling concert poster, the small trophies, the childhood bed they had long outgrown. Reality, with its schedules and managers and dorm rooms that weren’t truly theirs, waited outside the door.
Hyukjae sat up first, wincing.He looked down at himself and made a face. “Disgusting.”
“You started it,” Donghae muttered, staring at the ceiling.
“And you finished it. Twice.” Hyukjae stood, his gait slightly stiff, and offered a hand.“Come on. We can’t leave my mom’s house smelling like a brothel.Shower. Then coffee.”
The shower was less an exploration and more a triage.They washed each other efficiently, scrubbing away the evidence of the weekend. When Donghae’s thumb passed over the fading purple mark of the leech bite on Hyukjae’s calf, Hyukjae looked down.
“We should write that song,” he said quietly, water streaming down his face. “The quiet home one.”
“Yeah,” Donghae agreed, the words feeling significant. “We should.”
They dressed in clean, quiet clothes—jeans, hoodies, the uniform of departure. Hyukjae’s mother was already in the kitchen, packing a cooler with containers of kimchi, banchan, and a stack of freshly frozen mandu.
“For the dorm,” she said, not looking up. “The others will want some.”
They ate a silent breakfast of rice and reheated soup. The easy camaraderie of yesterday was gone, replaced by the grim focus of people steeling themselves for a shift.The last of the coffee was poured. The last bag was zipped.
At the front door, Hyukjae’s mother hugged them both tightly, her small frame surprisingly strong.“Drive safely. Call when you arrive.” She patted Donghae’s cheek.“You look tired.Both of you. Sleep in the car.”
They loaded the vehicle. The rain had stopped, leaving the world clean and bright, a cruel contrast to their mood.Hyukjae took the wheel. Donghae slid into the passenger seat, the familiar dashboard a welcome anchor.
As Hyukjae backed out of the driveway, Donghae looked up at the window of the childhood bedroom. For a second, he imagined he could still see the ghost of their outlines on the bed, the echo of their laughter, the profound silence that only they could make.
Hyukjae followed his gaze, then looked ahead at the road opening before them. He reached across the console, his hand finding Donghae’s, threading their fingers together.He didn’t say anything.He didn’t need to.
The house, with its secrets and its pond and its quiet, shrank in the rearview mirror. Ahead lay the highway, the city, the noise. Donghae held onto Hyukjae’s hand, their joined hands resting on the gearshift, a point of contact against the parting that had already begun.
Donghae held onto Hyukjae’s hand, their joined hands resting on the gearshift, a point of contact against the parting that had already begun. The silence in the car wasn't empty. It was thick with everything they'd done, everything they'd said, and everything Seoul would demand of them the moment they exited the highway. Hyukjae’s thumb moved, a slow sweep across Donghae’s knuckle.The highway unspooled ahead, a grey concrete river pulling them away from the pond, the lavender detergent, the locked bedroom door.
“I can still feel you,” Hyukjae said, his eyes on the road. His voice was low, casual, just above the hum of the tires.“Good,” Donghae said. He didn’t elaborate. He let his head fall back against the seat and watched the scenery blur, the pleasant, deep ache in his body a secret companion. The distance left in the trip felt both infinite and miserably short. He dozed, not quite asleep, aware of every minor adjustment Hyukjae made to the steering wheel, every shift of his grip.
When they hit the outskirts of Seoul, the spell cracked.Hyukjae’s phone buzzed twice in succession on the console. He glanced at it, sighed, and withdrew his hand to tap a quick response. The loss of contact was a physical chill.“Manager-hyung,” Hyukjae said. “Confirming we’re en route. Schedule for tomorrow is brutal.”
“When isn’t it?” Donghae muttered, sitting up. The cityscape rose before them, a forest of steel and glass that felt alien after the weathered wood and quiet of the house.
Hyukjae dropped him off first at his own apartment, a necessary separation before they’d be thrown together again in the company van tomorrow. The curb felt too final. “Studio,” Hyukjae said, rolling down the passenger window as Donghae hauled his bag out.“Tomorrow night. Don’t be late.”
“I’m never late,” Donghae lied with a weak smile.
Hyukjae just raised an eyebrow, a silent callback to a hundred waited moments, then pulled away. Donghae stood on the pavement, the container of frozen mandu from Hyukjae’s mother heavy in his hand, and watched the car disappear into the traffic flow. The silence of his apartment was a different kind of quiet.It echoed.The next day was a barrage.Photoshoot.Interview. A fitting for a variety show costume that felt scratchy and absurd. Through it all, Hyukjae was nearby, but professionally so. The easy, sprawling intimacy of the weekend was packed away, replaced by quick, knowing glances across a room, a shoulder brushed in passing. The deadline for the new track loomed in the back of Donghae’s mind, a formless stressor.
But when he walked into the studio that evening, the weight lifted. Hyukjae was already there, sleeves pushed up, hunched over the digital audio workstation with headphones on. Two iced americanos sat sweating on the desk.He didn’t turn around.
Donghae dropped into the chair beside him, put on his own cans. He listened to the bare, looping chord progression Hyukjae had built. It was warm, a little melancholy, but with a pulsing, insistent heartbeat underneath.It felt like driving at dawn.It felt like a shared, silent look.
Without a word, Donghae pulled a keyboard closer. The stress of the deadline, the noise of the day, it all just fell away. After making love with Hyukjae, not stressed by deadlines, everything flowed easily for him. His fingers found a melody over the chords, simple and heartfelt, the kind that gets stuck in your head for good reasons. He hummed it, then started singing nonsense syllables, catching the vibe.Hyukjae listened, head tilted. Then he nodded, a sharp, decisive motion.“That. Keep that.” He started manipulating the synth layers, adding a texture that felt like sunlight through dust motes. He began to write on a notepad, his pen moving fast.Donghae, eyes closed, let the melody refine itself. Words began to attach themselves to the notes, unforced and true. He opened his eyes, saw Hyukjae’s notes, and picked up his own pen.They worked. It wasn’t a debate.It was a convergence. Donghae would hum a line, and Hyukjae would sculpt the sound around it. Hyukjae would scribble a phrase, and Donghae would build a chorus to elevate it. The lyrics emerged not as poetry, but as a conversation they’d been having for years without microphones.
Donghae sang softly into his mic, testing the words: “I knew it the first time I saw you. Like an artist who came up with inspiration.Masterpiece drawn in my head. I'm humming without realising it, a serenade for you.”
Hyukjae, listening, added a subtle harmony on the next pass. Then he leaned into his own mic, his voice lower, more conversational, a counterpoint to Donghae’s earnestness.“How beautiful are you?I don't think you know. I can't put it into words.Poetry, movie, paint and music. I need everything all night long.”
He looked over at Donghae, a playful challenge in his eyes. He continued, his voice dropping to a smoother, rhythmic flow.“You just follow my lead. Let me put you on the canvas, baby, please swear to God I'm into you, I mean it, I mean it.” He stopped the track, rewound a few bars. “Here,” he said, “this is your part again, then we go back to me.”
Donghae took it, singing his lines with more confidence now. Hyukjae watched the waveforms scroll across the screen, nodding.Then he jumped back in, his delivery transforming, becoming more pointed, more visceral. “Turn around and look at me baby.Got me saying wow, you are beautiful. Follow your instincts baby. I draw you like I'm possessed, you're my muse.”
The final word hung in the treated air of the booth.They let the last chord ring out and decay into silence. The screen was a mess of overlapping recordings, a beautiful chaos.Donghae took off his headphones. The world rushed back in—the faint buzz of the studio fridge, the distant Seoul traffic. Hyukjae was already slouched back in his chair, spinning a pen between his fingers, looking at the chaotic arrangement with satisfaction.
“It’s not bad,” Hyukjae said, the understatement so vast it was a joke.
“It’s the best thing we’ve done in a year,” Donghae said, the truth of it swelling in his chest.It felt alive. It felt like them.Hyukjae saved the project file, the click of the mouse final. He stood, stretched, his spine cracking. “We should get food.”
“We have to mix it.”
“Tomorrow.”
“We have rehearsals tomorrow.”
“Then after.” Hyukjae grabbed his jacket, tossing Donghae’s at him.“The mandu from my mom. We can pan-fry them at your place. Your pan is better.”
Donghae caught the jacket, smelling the studio, their coffee, Hyukjae’s cologne. The city outside was a kingdom of obligations, a maze of appointments and expectations. But here, in the elevator descending, shoulder to shoulder with Hyukjae, with a raw, honest track saved on the drive and a container of homemade mandu in his hand, the path forward felt simple, clear, and theirs.
The elevator door slid shut, sealing them in a mirrored silence that felt earned. Hyukjae leaned against the rail, his shoulder pressing into Donghae’s. “Your pan really is better,” he said, as if continuing an internal argument.“It just is. Don’t get smug about it.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it.” Hyukjae watched the floor numbers descend.“Fourteen.”
Donghae punched the button. The elevator rose, a soft mechanical whirring its only conversation. It stopped at fourteen, Hyukjae’s floor.The doors opened onto a familiar, empty hallway. He didn’t move.“Walk me down?”
They stepped out. The hallway carpet was a faded navy, the lights overly bright. Hyukjae’s door was just around the corner, but he turned left instead, towards the stairwell at the end. Donghae followed, the container of mandu swinging lightly at his side. They pushed through the heavy fire door and began the two-flight descent to Donghae’s floor on twelve. Their footsteps on concrete echoed, too loud for the quiet building.
“Trigame’s too quiet at night,” Hyukjae muttered, his voice bouncing off the cinderblock walls.“Sometimes I hear my upstairs neighbor’s cat. Just the cat.”
“You should get a cat.”
“I have you. You’re needier than a cat.”
Donghae shoved him gently, and Hyukjae stumbled down two steps, catching himself with a laugh that ricocheted. They emerged onto the twelfth-floor landing, their breath slightly shorter from the quick descent. Donghae’s door was the first one on the right.Inside, Donghae’s apartment was a study in organized contrast. One side of the living room housed neat, professional music equipment. The other was a chaos of half-unpacked luggage, discarded hoodies, and a single framed photograph of the ocean. Hyukjae kicked off his shoes with practiced familiarity, beelining for the kitchen.“Pan. Now.”
Donghae handed him the mandu container and pulled the well-seasoned cast iron skillet from a lower cabinet. Hyukjae took it, ran a finger over the smooth, black surface, and nodded approval.He set it on the burner with a decisive clang. The ritual began: oil heating, frozen mandu arranged in a precise spiral, the first satisfying sizzle as they hit the pan.Donghae pulled two beers from the fridge, their caps hissing open in unison.
They leaned against opposite counters, watching the mandu crisp. The smell filled the kitchen, a direct line back to Hyukjae’s mother’s kitchen, to the pond, to the weekend already feeling like a dream preserved in amber.
“The bridge,” Donghae said, taking a sip.“It needs something.”
“I know.A lift.Not lyrical. Sonic.” Hyukjae gestured with his bottle. “Maybe bring the synth riff back there, but higher, thinner. Like a memory.”
Donghae hummed the melody from the studio, testing the idea against the backdrop of frying food.“Yeah. That could work.”
Hyukjae flipped the mandu with a confident jerk of the wrist.They landed perfectly, their browned sides facing up. “It’s called trusting my instincts.”
“It’s called showing off.”
When the mandu were golden and glistening, they ate them straight from the pan, standing over the stove, blowing on the hot, steaming parcels. The fillings were rich and savory, a taste of care packaged weeks ago for this exact moment.They didn’t speak. The only sounds were chewing, the clink of bottles on quartz, the hum of the overhead vent.
Later, sprawled on Donghae’s floor with lyric sheets scattered between them and the cleaned pan resting on the coffee table, they finished it.The bridge came together not as a labor, but as a discovery. Hyukjae sang the new synth line with his eyes closed, voice tentative then sure. Donghae scribbled the final words, his handwriting slanting into Hyukjae’s on the page.
He read them aloud.“You’re the only one who makes me feel this high. My colors were grey ‘til you lit the sky.” He looked up. “Is that too much?”
Hyukjae was silent for a beat. Then he shook his head, a small, private smile playing on his lips.“It’s true.It’s the song. It’s done.”
‘Muse’ was complete. The silence that followed wasn’t the quiet of an ending, but of a shared, deep breath. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, Seoul glittered, a circuit board of infinite demands. In here, there was only the soft rustle of paper, the faint ghost of fried garlic in the air, and the palpable, solid thing they had built together between the dusk and the dinner dishes. Hyukjae gathered the pages, tapping them into a neat stack on his thigh. His gaze drifted to the dark window, reflecting their still forms back at them. “They’re going to want another one tomorrow,” he said, not looking at Donghae.Donghae watched him.He knew the ‘they’ was infinite. The company, the fans, the unending calendar. “Let them want,” he said, the words coming out softer than he intended.Hyukjae finally turned his head. The faint light from the kitchen caught the fatigue, and the satisfaction, in the fine lines around his eyes. He didn’t agree or disagree. He just placed the finished song carefully on the table, a concrete proof against the abstract pressure of tomorrow.He stood, stretching his arms overhead until his spine gave a quiet pop. “I’m taking the rest of the kimchi,” he announced, walking back toward the kitchen. “And your pan is only better because I seasoned it for you that one time.”
“You did not.”
“I absolutely did.” Hyukjae’s voice was muffled as he rooted in the fridge.He emerged with the plastic container, clutching it to his chest.“I’m going upstairs. My own bed. I’ll see you in the van at seven.”
“Six-fifty.”
“Six-fifty-five.” He paused at the doorway, kimchi held like a trophy, the song on the table between them. The space of the apartment felt charged, fuller than it had been minutes before. “Don’t be late,” Hyukjae said, and it wasn’t about the time.