Chapter 21: Punishment Protocol
The fever broke just after dawn, leaving Hyukjae drenched in sour sweat and a deep, shivering cold. Donghae had dozed fitfully around him, waking every hour to press a hand to his forehead, to force sips of water between his chattering teeth. Now, in the flat grey morning light, Hyukjae lay still, his breathing less ragged, his skin finally cooling. Donghae watched him sleep, the worry unknotting in his gut only to be replaced by the old, familiar static.
He’d cancelled the morning meeting. He’d answered emails. He’d stared at the unfinished ballad track on his laptop until the notes swam. The silence of the penthouse, which had felt so blissfully filled hours before, began to echo again.
Hyukjae stirred with a low groan. His eyelids fluttered open. He looked hollowed out, but clear.
“Water,” he croaked.
Donghae handed him the glass from the nightstand, supporting the back of his head. Hyukjae drank greedily, water spilling down his chin onto his bare chest. When he finished, he sank back, his eyes tracking Donghae’s face. He saw it immediately. The tension had returned, hardening the line of Donghae’s jaw, tightening the skin around his eyes.
“You didn’t sleep,” Hyukjae said.
“I slept enough.”
“The album.”
“It’s fine.”
“Bullshit.” Hyukjae pushed himself up on weak arms. The duvet pooled around his waist. “You’re wound tighter than you were last night. Before I…” He gestured vaguely.
“Before you gave me your plague?” Donghae tried to smile. It felt like a crack in clay.
Hyukjae didn’t return it. He reached out, his hand still too warm, and cupped Donghae’s cheek. His thumb stroked the dark circle under his eye. “Tell me.”
The tenderness was the trigger. The careful ministrations of the night, the gentleness—it felt like a precursor to another absence. A calm before the storm of his own solo work swallowed him again. A fury, hot and irrational, lit in Donghae’s veins. He didn’t want tenderness. He wanted obliteration.
He grabbed Hyukjae’s wrist, his grip hard. “I don’t want to talk.”
Hyukjae’s eyes narrowed, not in anger, but in assessment. He saw the storm. He’d always been able to navigate it. He let his body go pliant in Donghae’s grasp. “Okay.”
That single word of permission was all it took.
Donghae moved with a sudden, brutal efficiency. He shoved Hyukjae forward, face-down into the mattress. The older man went without resistance, a muffled gasp lost in the pillows. Donghae swung a leg over his hips, pinning him. He could feel the residual heat from the fever burning through Hyukjae’s skin, could feel the faint tremor in his muscles. He ignored it.
He gathered the tangle of Hyukjae’s sleep-damp hair in one fist and yanked, exposing the long line of his neck. He bent and bit, not a love bite but a sharp, punitive claim of teeth on the juncture of shoulder and throat. Hyukjae jolted, a choked-off sound escaping him.
“This,” Donghae hissed against his skin, saliva and anger mixing in his mouth. “This is what happens when you make me wait. When you leave me alone in my fucking head.”
He spat, a coarse, wet sound. The saliva landed on his own fingers, glistening. He didn’t reach for lubricant. He didn’t play. He pressed two fingers against Hyukjae’s entrance, dry and demanding, and pushed in.
Hyukjae’s whole body arched, a strangled cry tearing from his lungs. It was too much, too dry, too fast. His back muscles corded, his fingers clawing at the sheets. Donghae worked his fingers in roughly, the drag brutal, stretching him with a ruthless urgency. He scissored them, the friction burning.
“Donghae—fuck—wait—”
“No.” Donghae removed his fingers, hearing Hyukjae’s ragged inhale. He fumbled with his own pajama pants, shoving them down just enough. He spat into his palm again, slicking himself with a crude, hurried stroke. He was rock hard, anger and desperate need fused into a single punishing point.
He positioned himself, the blunt head pressing where his fingers had been. He leaned down, his mouth against Hyukjae’s ear. “You wanted me to stop thinking. So do your job.”
He drove in. One brutal, shearing thrust.
Hyukjae screamed. It was a raw, shattered sound that filled the blue-toned room. His body convulsed, clamping around Donghae in a vise of shocked, unbearable heat. Donghae saw stars, the tightness a near-painful bliss. He didn’t pause. He didn’t give an inch of grace. He set a punishing rhythm, slamming into him, the slap of skin on sweat-slicked skin a violent percussion.
The bed shook. The headboard knocked against the wall with each drive. Donghae fucked him like he was exorcising a demon, his breaths coming in harsh, sobbing grunts. He held Hyukjae down by the hair and the shoulder, pinning him to take it, to take all of it—the fear, the insecurity, the vast, lonely silence of a solo studio.
Hyukjae was sobbing. Tears and saliva soaked the pillow beneath him. But his cries had changed. The pain had bled into something else, a ragged, open-mouthed surrender. He was pushing back, meeting each brutal thrust, his body accepting the invasion, transforming it.
“Is this… is this what you needed?” Hyukjae choked out, the words fractured by the force of Donghae’s movements. “To fucking break me?”
“Yes.” Donghae’s voice was a broken thing. “To feel you. To know you’re here. To know I can—” He punctuated each phrase with a drive of his hips. “—reach you.”
He leaned over, blanketing Hyukjae’s trembling form, his chest slick with sweat against Hyukjae’s burning back. He wrapped a hand around Hyukjae’s cock, stroking him in time with his thrusts, his grip tight and rough. “Come for me. Come on my cock like the good, fucking, dependable thing you are.”
The filthy, degrading words, so alien to their usual language, did it. Hyukjae shattered with a wail that seemed to tear from his very soul, his release pulsing over Donghae’s fist and onto the ruined sheets. The clenching, rhythmic milking of his orgasm pushed Donghae over the edge. He buried himself to the hilt, a final, deep plunge, and came with a guttural roar, his vision whiting out as he emptied himself inside that impossibly tight, welcoming heat.
Collapse was inevitable. He slid out, rolling off to crumple on his back beside Hyukjae. The room stank of sex and sweat and sickness. Their breathing was the only sound, a duet of wrecked gasps.
Donghae stared at the ceiling, the storm inside him now a spent, trembling quiet. Shame, cold and oily, began to seep into the void left by his rage.
A hand found his. Hyukjae’s fingers, trembling slightly, laced through his.
“I’m sorry,” Donghae whispered, the words ash in his mouth.
“Don’t.” Hyukjae’s voice was shredded. He turned his head on the pillow. His face was blotchy, tear-streaked, exhausted. But his eyes held Donghae with an unbearable softness. “You think that’s the worst you can give me? After twenty-five years?” He coughed, a weak, breathy sound. “I’m not broken. I’m here.”
Donghae turned onto his side, facing him. He brought their joined hands to his lips, kissing Hyukjae’s knuckles. “I hurt you.”
“You reached me.” Hyukjae echoed his own crude words back at him, stripping them of their violence, leaving only the raw truth. He winced as he shifted. “I’ll feel that tomorrow. And the next day. A reminder.”
They lay in the wreckage for a long time. The city outside began its daily grind, but in the blue room, time felt suspended.
“The ballad,” Hyukjae said eventually, his eyes closed. “What’s it called?”
“Doesn’t have a title yet.”
“Call it ‘Ghost.’ My harmonies in the back. Barely there. But present.” He opened his eyes. “So when you’re on that stage alone, you’ll remember I’m in the track. I’m under your skin. I’m in the ache.” He gave a pained, beautiful smile. “You can’t get rid of me, Donghae. Not even when you try.”
Donghae pressed his forehead against Hyukjae’s shoulder, inhaling the scent of their collision. The silence returned, but it was different now. It wasn’t empty. It was full of the echoes of what they had just done, a brutal, sacred communion. It was a silence they would both carry, a shared, physical truth.
It was, for now, enough.
It was, for now, enough.
The quiet stretched, thin and precarious. Donghae became aware of the cooling stickiness on his stomach, the sharp scent of sex and stress permeating the sheets. Hyukjae’s breathing evened into sleep, but his skin still radiated a concerning heat. The fever was back, or had never truly left. The reality of what he’d done—fucking his sick, exhausted partner raw without a shred of care—crashed over Donghae in a nauseating wave.
He disentangled their fingers, the movement causing Hyukjae to murmur incoherently. Donghae slid from the bed, his own body protesting. He walked to the bathroom on unsteady legs, avoiding his reflection in the dark mirror. He ran the tap until the water steamed, filling the deep marble tub. He poured in lavender bath salts, the calming scent a feeble counterpoint to the violence still clinging to the air.
Returning to the bedroom, he approached the bed like a penitent. “Hyukjae-ah,” he whispered, brushing damp hair from his forehead. “Come on. We need to clean up.”
Hyukjae only groaned, turning his face away. Donghae slipped his arms under him, lifting with a grunt. Hyukjae was dead weight, head lolling against Donghae’s shoulder. He carried him to the bathroom, the journey feeling like an apology in itself. He lowered him into the hot water, gently, supporting his neck.
Hyukjae hissed as the water hit his abused skin, his eyes flying open. They were glazed, but present.
“Hurts,” he slurred.
“I know.” Donghae’s voice cracked. He took a soft cloth, lathered it with soap, and began. He washed the sweat from Hyukjae’s chest, the dried tears from his face, the come from his thighs. He was meticulous, reverent. He washed the long, red marks his own teeth had left on Hyukjae’s neck. He cleaned between his legs with a touch so light it trembled, rinsing away the evidence of his own rough possession.
“I’m sorry,” Donghae whispered, the words barely audible over the gentle slosh of water. He kissed Hyukjae’s temple. “I’m so sorry, Hyukkie.” Another kiss on a closed eyelid. “I was an animal.” A kiss on the corner of his mouth, tasting salt. “I love you. I love you so much it makes me crazy. I’m sorry.”
Hyukjae’s hand rose from the water, fingers weakly curling around Donghae’s wrist. He didn’t speak. He just held on.
Donghae drained the tub and wrapped him in a huge, towel-warmed robe. He half-carried him back to the bed, which he had stripped of its ruined sheets. The new linen smelled clean, of sunlight and lavender. He laid Hyukjae down, arranging the pillows, tucking the duvet around him. He fetched water and aspirin, watching as Hyukjae swallowed them obediently.
“Rest,” Donghae said, smoothing his hair back. “Just sleep. I’ll be right here.”
He turned to go, to perhaps sit in the chair by the window, to give him space. Hyukjae’s hand shot out, clutching the hem of Donghae’s t-shirt. His grip was surprisingly strong.
“Stay.” His voice was a dry rasp. “Lie down. Here.”
Donghae obeyed. He slid under the duvet, still in his loose sleep pants. He turned on his side, facing Hyukjae, who immediately curled towards him, seeking his heat. Donghae wrapped an arm around him, pulling him close. He buried his nose in Hyukjae’s clean, damp hair, inhaling the lavender and the underlying scent that was just him.
“I really am sorry,” Donghae murmured into his hairline, his body curving around Hyukjae’s like a protective shell.
“I know.” Hyukjae’s hand found its way under Donghae’s shirt, resting flat over his heartbeat. “But your apologies are too loud. Be quiet now.”
So Donghae tried. He held him, feeling the fever gradually recede under his touch. He kissed the shell of his ear, his shoulder, every place his lips could reach without moving him. It was a silent litany. Sorry. Love you. Mine. Sorry.
Hyukjae shifted, turning slowly in the circle of his arms until they were face to face. His eyes were clearer now, dark pools in the dim room. He looked at Donghae, really looked, seeing the shattered guilt, the childish need for absolution. He saw the baby of the group, the one he’d spent a lifetime coddling, who had just thrown the world’s worst, most painful tantrum.
A slow, tired smile touched Hyukjae’s lips. “There you are,” he whispered.
He leaned in and kissed Donghae. It wasn’t passionate or hungry. It was soft, a seal. A reset. Donghae melted into it, a whimper catching in his throat. He kissed back with desperate gratitude, his hands coming up to cradle Hyukjae’s face, thumbs stroking his cheekbones.
When they parted, Hyukjae nudged him onto his back. He moved with a weary grace, swinging a leg over Donghae’s hips to straddle him. He was still wrapped in the robe, the belt loose.
“Hyuk, no, you’re sick,” Donghae protested weakly, his hands settling on Hyukjae’s thighs.
“I’m better. And you need this.” Hyukjae’s voice was low, firm. “The right way this time.”
He opened the robe, letting it fall from his shoulders. The marks from earlier stood out against his pale skin. He took Donghae’s hands and placed them on his bare waist. Then he leaned forward, bracing himself on Donghae’s chest, and kissed him again, deep and slow. Donghae’s body responded instantly, a low heat building that had nothing to do with anger.
Hyukjae reached between them, pushing down Donghae’s sleep pants, freeing his cock. He was already half-hard. Hyukjae spit into his own palm, a crude, practical sound, and wrapped his fingers around him, stroking slowly until Donghae was fully erect, leaking against his stomach.
“Look at me,” Hyukjae whispered.
Donghae’s eyes, wide and vulnerable, locked onto his. Hyukjae guided the blunt head of Donghae’s cock to his entrance, still loose and sore from their earlier violence. He didn’t rush. He pressed down, a slow, inexorable surrender, letting his body stretch and accept him with a shuddering, open-mouthed sigh.
“Fuck,” Donghae breathed, his head falling back, every muscle trembling with the effort to stay still.
“Yeah,” Hyukjae agreed, a soft groan as he settled fully, taking him to the hilt. He was impossibly hot, impossibly tight despite everything, a velvety clutch that made Donghae see stars. Hyukjae began to move, not bouncing, but rocking. A deep, grinding roll of his hips that rubbed Donghae’s cock against his most sensitive spots inside.
It was agony. It was ecstasy. It was so slow it felt like dying.
Donghae’s hands gripped his waist, not to control, but to feel. His hips lifted in tiny, helpless increments, meeting that torturous rock. “I love you,” he choked out, the words ripped from him. “God, Hyukjae, I love you.”
Hyukjae leaned down, capturing his mouth again, swallowing the words. He kissed him as he moved, their breaths mingling. The room was silent save for the wet, slick sound of their joining and their ragged, shared air.
Donghae came first, overwhelmed by the tenderness, by the profound forgiveness in the steady rock of Hyukjae’s body. It washed through him without the sharp violence of before, a deep, pulsing warmth that left him boneless and weeping silently, his release filling Hyukjae in gentle, rhythmic pulses.
Hyukjae followed, his own climax a quiet, shuddering collapse against Donghae’s chest, his spend striping Donghae’s stomach in warm spurts. He crumpled there, spent, his fever seemingly broken for good by the sweat that slicked his skin.
They lay tangled, sticky again, but clean in a way they hadn’t been before. Donghae held him, one hand stroking the knobs of his spine. He pressed his lips to Hyukjae’s forehead, his cheeks, the corner of his swollen mouth.
“Baby,” Hyukjae mumbled into his skin, the old, fond nickname a final benediction.
Exhaustion, true and deep, pulled them under. The city lights blurred outside the windows, the blue room holding them in its silent, merciful embrace. The ghost of the ballad, the specter of the solo stage, lingered at the edges—but for now, it was just them. The storm had passed, leaving two weathered bodies anchored together in the calm.
The storm had passed, leaving two weathered bodies anchored together in the calm. Donghae woke first to the sharp, clean scent of laundered sheets and the steady rhythm of Hyukjae’s breathing against his neck. The fever had broken completely; the skin under his palm was cool, almost damp. Taipei’s dawn painted the room in strips of pale gold and lingering blue.
He shifted slightly, the ache in his muscles a pleasant echo of their earlier violence. Hyukjae murmured, his arms tightening around Donghae’s waist. The simple possessiveness of it—the unthinking claim—unlocked something tender and frantic in Donghae’s chest. The guilt had softened into a desperate, worshipful need. He had to map this territory again, properly, with reverence.
“Hyukkie,” he whispered, his voice rough with sleep.
“Mmm.” Hyukjae didn’t open his eyes. “Too early.”
“It’s not.” Donghae pressed his lips to Hyukjae’s forehead. Then his temple. “I need you.”
“You had me.” Hyukjae cracked one eye open, a smirk tugging at his mouth. “Twice. I’m fucking sore.”
“Not like that.” Donghae’s hands began to move, smoothing over the planes of Hyukjae’s back, tracing the spine he’d washed with such care hours before. “Let me… just let me.”
He didn’t wait for permission. He rolled Hyukjae onto his back, the duvet falling away. The morning light caught the bite marks on his neck, the faint bruises on his hips. Donghae bent his head and began to pepper kisses over every one. Not as an apology, but as a reclaiming. Each press of his lips was a silent vow.
“I love this spot,” he murmured against the hammering pulse in Hyukjae’s throat. He licked a slow stripe up to his jaw. “I love this mole.” A kiss there. “I love the stupid way your ear folds here.” He took the lobe between his teeth, nipping gently.
Hyukjae shivered, a low laugh bubbling out of him. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I love you.” Donghae said it into the hollow of his throat. “I love you.” He said it against his collarbone. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” He marched the words down Hyukjae’s chest with open-mouthed kisses, each one softer than the last, until Hyukjae was squirming, his laughter genuine and bright in the quiet room.
“Okay, okay! I’m convinced!” Hyukjae gasped, tangling his hands in Donghae’s hair. “You’re a sentimental fuck after all.”
Donghae looked up, his eyes dark. “Shut up.” He lowered his head and took Hyukjae’s left nipple into his mouth.
He didn’t just suck. He worshipped. He circled the tight nub with the very tip of his tongue, painting wet, lazy circles until it pebbled into a hard peak. Then he bit down, not hard enough to hurt, but with just enough edge to make Hyukjae’s breath catch. He soothed it with his tongue, then moved to the other, giving it the same relentless attention. He teased them with his teeth, tugging lightly, blowing cool air over the wetness until Hyukjae was arching off the bed, his fingers twisting in the sheets.
“Fuck, Donghae.”
“You taste like salt,” Donghae mumbled, moving lower. He kissed the defined ridges of Hyukjae’s abdomen, licking into the dip of his navel. “You taste like us.” He nosed through the coarse hair leading south, his breath hot on Hyukjae’s flushed skin.
He bypassed Hyukjae’s cock, which was already full and leaking against his stomach. Instead, he pressed his face into the crease of Hyukjae’s thigh, inhaling the musky, intimate scent there. He licked a long, wet path from knee to groin, then did the same on the other side. Hyukjae’s legs fell open, a wordless invitation.
Donghae took his time. He licked every erogenous part he could find. The sensitive skin behind Hyukjae’s knees. The inner thighs, where the flesh was softest, kissing and sucking until dark marks bloomed. He traced the prominent hip bones with his tongue, dipping into the valleys. He moved back up, burying his face in Hyukjae’s armpit, licking the sweat there, and Hyukjae barked out a shocked, delighted laugh.
“You’re insane! What the hell are you doing?”
“Tasting you.” Donghae’s voice was muffled against his skin. “All of you. Every fucking part.”
He worked his way down Hyukjae’s side, kissing along the rib cage, nipping at the love handle he always pretended to hate. He turned him over, his hands spreading Hyukjae’s cheeks apart. He licked a firm, wet stripe from his perineum all the way up the cleft of his ass, circling the tight, pink furl of his entrance.
Hyukjae jolted, a ragged moan tearing from his throat. “Christ—”
Donghae ate him out with a sinful, devoted precision. He fucked him with his tongue, pushing deep into that hot, clenching channel, then flattened his tongue to lap broad strokes. He spit, the sound obscene in the quiet, and used his saliva to slick the way, his tongue probing and relentless. Hyukjae was shaking, pushing back against his face, little broken pleas falling from his lips.
“There, right there—fuck, your tongue—”
Donghae pulled back, his chin slick. He flipped Hyukjae onto his back again, looming over him. He was panting, his own cock throbbing against Hyukjae’s leg. “I love you,” he said again, raw and urgent. “You hear me? Every cell. Every stupid, perfect part.”
He captured Hyukjae’s mouth in a deep, messy kiss, letting him taste himself on Donghae’s tongue. Hyukjae kissed back hungrily, his hands cupping Donghae’s face.
“Then show me,” Hyukjae panted against his lips. “Don’t just say it. Fucking show me.”
Donghae reached for the lube this time, squeezing a generous amount onto his fingers. He pushed two inside Hyukjae in one smooth thrust, scissoring them, preparing him with a care that bordered on agony. He curled his fingers, searching, and found that sweet spot inside him.
Hyukjae cried out, his back bowing. “Yes! Right there, yes—”
Donghae added a third finger, stretching him wide, watching his face the entire time. “You take me so good,” he muttered, his voice thick. “Always so good for me.” He withdrew his fingers and slicked his own cock, the head nudging against Hyukjae’s hole. “Look at me.”
Hyukjae’s eyes were blown black, his lips swollen. He held Donghae’s gaze as Donghae pushed inside, inch by devastating inch. The slide was smooth, wet, unbearably tight. Donghae bottomed out with a groan, his forehead dropping to Hyukjae’s shoulder.
“Move,” Hyukjae begged, his legs wrapping around Donghae’s waist. “Please.”
Donghae obeyed. He set a deep, rolling rhythm, each thrust grinding his pelvis against Hyukjae’s ass. It wasn’t frantic. It was profound. He fucked him with a concentrated, worshipful intensity, every drive of his hips spelling out a devotion words could never touch. He kissed him, swallowing his moans, peppering his face with kisses between breaths.
“Mine,” Donghae grunted, his pace increasing. “My partner. My home. My fucking everything.” He reached between them, fisting Hyukjae’s cock, his thumb smearing pre-come over the head. “Come for me. Let me see it.”
The combination of his words, his touch, the relentless drag of his cock inside him was too much. Hyukjae came with a shattered cry, his release painting his stomach in thick, white stripes. The clenching of his orgasm milked Donghae’s own climax from him, a hot, pulsing flood that filled Hyukjae up, sealing them together.
Donghae collapsed, careful to keep his weight off him. He was trembling, spent. He nuzzled into Hyukjae’s neck, his lips finding skin. “I love you,” he whispered once more, the words a vow etched into the sweat-damp air between them.
Hyukjae’s hand came up, carding through his hair. “I know,” he sighed, his body already going slack with sleep. “You made your point.”