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merryfuture2023-07-12 02:08 pm
staygame) wrote in merryfuture2023-07-12 02:08 pm
Entry tags:
to my star: somehow you arrived (2021)
somehow you arrived (ao3 link, see original work for author's notes) | to my star, jiwoo/seojoon, mature, 3k words
tags: post-canon, established relationship, slice of life, mild sexual content, no archive warnings apply
written for: yuletide 2021
---
"I haven't known a day of peace since I met you," Pilhyun says.
Seojoon had insisted on having Pilhyun and Homin over to tell them. Insisted, too, on making kimbap, a do-over of the first time he'd made it for them. Seojoon's knife skills were far better these days, but he still made Jiwoo sit with him in the kitchen to supervise. "For safety," he said, but Jiwoo knows it was because Seojoon is still half-convinced that if Jiwoo leaves his sight, he won't be coming back. The same way that Jiwoo still wakes up before his alarm on most days without meaning to, just to watch the steady rise and fall of Seojoon's chest, proof that this isn't a fever dream.
"Same," Jiwoo says, to which Seojoon pouts.
Homin leans forward, eyes wide and sincere as he looks at Jiwoo. "Please take good care of hyung."
"Ah, fuck," Pilhyun mutters. He pulls his phone from his pocket and begins typing rapidly. "Jiwoo, I'll need the names of all your social media accounts. And any skeletons in your closet I don't know about, big or small. Even an unpaid parking ticket."
"He doesn't have a license," Seojoon says.
Pilhyun finishes whatever he was typing and pockets his phone before shoving two pieces of kimbap into his mouth in quick succession. When he's finished chewing, he announces, "This is going to make my job more difficult, but I still like you guys together."
Seojoon's hand finds Jiwoo's under the table and squeezes. The smile he offers Jiwoo isn't a movie star grin, but something softer, a private sort of affection that makes Jiwoo duck his head in embarrassment. "I like us together too," Seojoon says.
"Ya, I'm eating here," Pilhyun complains.
Seojoon fields offers right and left after the scandal clears, but the first role he takes is, according to the news articles that Seojoon read aloud to him over breakfast, "an unexpected choice." Not the highly anticipated political thriller or the romantic comedy alongside a rising actress, but an indie project made by a director whose last work was a short film, sixteen minutes of a couple breaking up over a romantic dinner.
Jiwoo's always preferred dramas to movies, but he watches it with Seojoon anyway. The film did well on the festival circuit, Seojoon tells him, and despite his skepticism, Jiwoo can see why. The director has a knack for colors and light, capturing the soft flicker of candlelight on the female lead's face as her boyfriend says something cruel, and the waitress's shadow neatly cleaving the table between the couple in two. By the end of the sixteen minutes, Seojoon is sniffling and Jiwoo pulls him in for a hug, Seojoon's head against his chest.
"What made you choose this one?" Jiwoo asks.
"I don't know," Seojoon says. He sits up as the credits begin to roll, stretching his arms up. Jiwoo's eyes automatically track the sliver of exposed skin until Seojoon's sweater falls back into place. "Maybe I wanted to do something interesting. Or maybe I wanted to show that I'm more than just a pretty boy who gets into fights, no matter what anyone still thinks."
From there, Seojoon's days start early and Jiwoo's always home late, rushing to shower the smell of kitchen off his skin before Seojoon falls asleep without him. On the nights when a delayed dinner rush means Jiwoo gets home even later, all he gets is a good morning kiss at dawn and the sight of reusable containers washed and dried on the counter, because the least Jiwoo can do is make sure Seojoon eats well.
Jiwoo wakes up one morning to the sound of coffee beans grinding in the kitchen. He finds Seojoon, wearing his glasses and a sweater that he'd stolen from Jiwoo, shoulder seams hanging just a bit askew.
"Shouldn't you be gone?" Jiwoo asks, checking his phone with mild alarm.
Seojoon turns when he hears Jiwoo, switching off the grinder. His hair is sticking up in every different direction. "It's raining," he says cheerfully. "We were supposed to shoot outdoor scenes all day and there wasn't enough notice to adjust the schedule. I'm all yours today."
"Sit, then," Jiwoo says, attempting to elbow Seojoon out of the way. "Let me cook something for you."
"It's fine," Seojoon says. He catches Jiwoo around the waist, tugging his body in close and kissing Jiwoo like he hasn't seen him in weeks instead of just hours. That's the thing about Seojoon—he's always this happy to see Jiwoo, a puppy constantly waiting for his owner to come home.
Jiwoo lets himself be kissed, soft and easy, making out just to make out.
When the moment is done, Jiwoo shoves Seojoon's dopey grinning face aside. "Seriously, hyung, sit. Do you want an omelette? Toast?"
"Omelette," Seojoon says, obediently taking a seat. He rests his chin on his hand. "You've officially converted me to eggs. Why haven't you won a Michelin star yet? Who do I need to talk to?"
"I don't think food critics take advice from actors," Jiwoo says. He lays out the ingredients he'd scrounged together from the fridge onto the counter, reaching for his cutting board and go-to knife. He starts with the mushrooms, giving them a quick dice.
"Hey, I was thinking," Seojoon says behind him.
"Hmm?"
"There are some things I need to pick up from my apartment," Seojoon says. "Want to come with me?"
Seojoon's old place is in a Hannam-dong high rise. Jiwoo would never admit to it, but back when they'd first met, he'd looked up Kang Seojoon on Naver, trying to see what the scandal Pilhyun had referenced was all about. He remembers a headline he'd seen–Actor Kang Seojoon purchases luxury apartment for 6 billion won. All in cash, the article noted. This had done nothing to improve Jiwoo's first impression of Seojoon.
The building is sleek, full of mirrors and marble accents from the elevator to Seojoon's door, but the inside of the apartment is nothing like that at all. It's cozier than Jiwoo expected. Big, yeah, with a view of Seoul that probably accounted for a billion won alone, but it's homey all the same.
Seojoon slides him a pair of slippers. "Feel free to look around, I'm just going to pack a bag."
There are touches of Seojoon's personality everywhere. A massive illustration of the solar system hanging in the entryway, the gallery wall of Kang Seojoon fanart, a guitar lying on the leather couch. Jiwoo had never lived anywhere nice enough to decorate—just shitty goshiwons, until he'd gotten the sublet offer from Pilhyun, and then he felt like there was no point in putting effort into a place that wasn't even his.
"There's probably water in the fridge if you want anything," Seojoon calls from his bedroom.
Jiwoo pauses in front of a tall bookshelf. There are framed pictures—Seojoon with Pilhyun and Homin, posing with props and silly glasses at some kind of event, a group photo with the crew on some set, and one that's unmistakably a younger Seojoon. He looks about seventeen or eighteen in the photo, hair cropped short and eyebrows as strong as ever. There's an older woman on his left and a man on the right that looks so much like Seojoon that Jiwoo almost feels as if he's caught a glimpse of Seojoon's future.
"That was when I first started out," Seojoon says. Jiwoo hadn't heard him approaching. "I think it was at an agency dinner or something."
Seojoon's voice is oddly distant in the way he sometimes gets when he talks about his past, like he's telling a story to an audience instead of the person in front of him. "They look nice," Jiwoo says, mostly just to say something.
"Really?" Seojoon laughs a little, stuffing his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie. "I guess they do. My parents were never bad people, they were just never that interested in being parents. As soon as I got a manager they were all too happy to hand over most of their responsibilities. Taking me to school, picking me up, showing up to my graduation. They were just there to benefit from the money I was making."
"Oh," Jiwoo says. He looks back at the photo, at the closed-mouth smile on the young Seojoon's face. Imagines him watching his parents board a flight to Italy and knowing they wouldn't be back. "You deserved better."
"Can't change the past," Seojoon says.
If Jiwoo knew how to give affection as freely as Seojoon, he'd probably say something like, I will make sure you never feel unloved again. But words have never come that easy to him, and as he slides his hand into Seojoon's pocket, finding the warmth of his hand and squeezing, Jiwoo can only hope that Seojoon knows what he wants to say, even if he can't say it.
He hasn't even made it to the back of the restaurant to set down his things yet when Jiwoo is accosted by two of his coworkers.
"How do you know Kang Seojoon?" one of them, the waitress who's barely out of high school, asks.
Jiwoo's first reaction is cold panic. Someone must've leaked a photo of them, or they were caught by Dispatch hanging out at their spot by the river. Another scandal that could derail, or even end Seojoon's career.
"I—" Jiwoo starts to say, but then the other part-timer thrusts her phone into Jiwoo's hand.
HIS SIDE OF THE STORY, the headline reads. EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH KANG SEOJOON. BY LEE YOONSEUL, SBN STATION. Yoonseul had sent him the article a few weeks ago, but Jiwoo never got around to reading it. He already knew Seojoon's side of the story.
"Scroll down," the part-timer instructs him, waving her hand urgently.
"He's not bad," Jiwoo says.
"Is he nice? He looks nice. Does he smell good?"
Jiwoo is spared any further questioning. His boss pokes his head out from behind the kitchen door and shouts, "Han Jiwoo, I need you on prep."
Still, he screenshots the paragraph and sends it to Seojoon during his break. good friend?
we seem like pretty good friends to me, Seojoon texts back immediately, followed by a series of winking stickers, including one of his own face, decorated with tiny pink hearts.
Jiwoo pockets his phone, smiling.
In the middle of delivering a particularly good blowjob, Seojoon pulls off Jiwoo's dick and asks, "So, how many people have you dated?"
Jiwoo gasps, a noise halfway between enjoyment and confusion. "You want to talk about this now?"
"Advanced interrogation technique," Seojoon says with an impish grin.
"Interrogation-" Jiwoo repeats, shaking his head. "Why do you need to know?"
Seojoon's tongue swipes along the head of Jiwoo's cock, teasing. "I'm a naturally curious person," he says. He then takes Jiwoo's cock in his mouth, swallowing around it, wet and enthusiastic. He keeps going until Jiwoo is close to coming, heat building at the base of Jiwoo's spine and—"Girls or boys?"
Yanked back from the edge, Jiwoo groans, hand going limp around a fistful of sheets. He wrenches one eye open. "Hyung."
"Well?"
"Both."
"Did you date Kim Hyungki?"
Jiwoo cranes his neck to look down at Seojoon, glaring. "Do you want to die?"
Seojoon has the nerve to laugh. "Han Jiwoo, you're scary."
"It's four in the morning," Seojoon says, looking at Jiwoo, then his phone screen, then back to Jiwoo.
"I know. Get up," Jiwoo says.
"You know," Seojoon repeats, shaking his head. "Where are we going?"
Jiwoo tugs on Seojoon's shoulder. "You'll find out when we get there."
"You're lucky I like you," Seojoon says.
Where they're going is the wholesale market across the river, a journey that Seojoon takes bleary-eyed, resting on Jiwoo's shoulder in the back of a cab. The idea had occurred to Jiwoo at the end of dinner service, a sudden overwhelming urge to let Seojoon in on this thing that he loves. Jiwoo is not spontaneous by nature, but he thinks maybe Seojoon is rubbing off on him.
"At my first restaurant job, I was in high school. I was just a dishwasher at this grilled fish restaurant," Jiwoo explains as he guides Seojoon through rows of wholesale vendors, past stacked cartons of fruit and bundles of green onions the size of Jiwoo's entire arm. "And one Friday night shift, my boss asked if I wanted to tag along to the auction. It was barely after midnight."
By now, even with the sun barely beginning to peek over the horizon, most of the day's chaos has already ended, but there are still open crates of seafood being sold. Jiwoo stops when they reach the edge of the auction floor. The pungent smell of fish and ripe tangerines filters through Jiwoo's mask.
The auctioneer's voice booms out over the loudspeaker as old men in long aprons and bright yellow boots inspect wriggling sea bass and salmon.
"I just thought it was such a cool thing," Jiwoo says in between sales. The market is cold, but Seojoon stands close enough to keep Jiwoo warm. "These fresh fish and ingredients arriving here, all these people taking them back to their markets or to restaurants. Hearing my boss explain why he would pick one fish over another. It gave me an idea of what I wanted to do."
"You look cute when you're being nerdy about fish," Seojoon teases.
"Be quiet," Jiwoo says.
The sun is finally beginning to rise when they leave the auction and head into the mall. Jiwoo leads them past the rows of dry goods and the butcher stands to the fish vendors. Wide brown flatfish, lobsters and crabs pressing against the glass of their tanks, sea cucumbers and abalone. Jiwoo finds a stand that looks good and barters with the ahjumma until they settle on a deal, and she sends an order of clams and rockfish up to the restaurant to prepare.
"No one is going to recognize you here," Jiwoo says, as Seojoon tugs his baseball cap further down over his head in the restaurant's back corner. "It's six in the morning and it's only fishermen here."
Which turns out to be an underestimation of Seojoon's star power, because when the restaurant ahjumma sets the plate of sashimi down between them, she gives Seojoon a long look and shakes her finger at him. "Aren't you the one on the Chamisul bottle?"
"Oh, no," Jiwoo says. Seojoon slumps down into his padded coat. "He gets that a lot."
They make it through breakfast without any further incident. Seojoon makes lots of pleased noises as he tries the sashimi and the clams, playing it up like the ham he is as Jiwoo watches fondly across the table.
Jiwoo had never taken any of his exes here, never really had the urge to integrate anyone else into all the parts of his life like this, or to share in joy just for the sake of it. With Seojoon, it's the first time he's ever felt like offering up every piece of himself to someone, trusting that they would want to hold each one.
Jiwoo probably should've seen it coming. Seojoon had been asking Jiwoo to teach him how to make pasta for weeks, practically every waking moment until Jiwoo made the time to show him how to make carbonara. Seojoon was normally an attentive student, but he even took notes this time, asking questions like, "So you salt the dough and the pasta water?" and "Why do you combine the flour and the egg like that?"
"It's just carbonara," Jiwoo said, whisking his egg and cheese mixture. "It's pretty easy."
"But I want to make it right," Seojoon insisted.
So really, Jiwoo should've known to expect that, on the evening of his birthday, Seojoon would present to him a bowl of carbonara.
And yet—"Are you surprised?"
"Yeah," Jiwoo says. There's a lump forming in his throat. Birthdays had never been a big deal in his family and he'd spent the last few either working or alone. He didn't like to be the center of attention and he hated the way receiving gifts only made him feel indebted. He'd told Seojoon all this months ago, before they even started dating, and Seojoon had replied, playfully sarcastic, over familiar in a way that Jiwoo felt he hadn't earned, Is there anything you do like?, but clearly he'd been listening. Just the two of them and a simple gesture of kindness. "No seaweed soup?"
Seojoon fidgets with the ties of his apron. "Well, I wanted to make something you like but if—"
"No, I was kidding," Jiwoo says, catching Seojoon's fingers and intertwining them with his own. Seojoon squeezes his hand. "It looks really good, hyung. Thank you."
The carbonara isn't perfect. The sauce is lumpy and the dough had clearly been too dry, but still. It's the best meal Jiwoo's had in a long time.
Jiwoo looks across Seojoon, watching as a few strands of pasta slide off his fork a moment before he tries to eat them. His mouth remains open, then turns downward into a pout, and Jiwoo laughs. Seojoon catches his eye. "What?"
"I love you," Jiwoo says. It bubbles up through his chest to his throat before he even thinks about it, as though the words had been on the tip of his tongue without him realizing. His face goes warm, but it's not with self-consciousness.
Seojoon's hand hovers with his fork at his mouth as he blinks, like he's making sure that he didn't mishear. Then he smiles, cheeks dimpling, and Jiwoo is even more sure that he meant what he just said. "I love you too," Seojoon says.
tags: post-canon, established relationship, slice of life, mild sexual content, no archive warnings apply
written for: yuletide 2021
---
"I haven't known a day of peace since I met you," Pilhyun says.
Seojoon had insisted on having Pilhyun and Homin over to tell them. Insisted, too, on making kimbap, a do-over of the first time he'd made it for them. Seojoon's knife skills were far better these days, but he still made Jiwoo sit with him in the kitchen to supervise. "For safety," he said, but Jiwoo knows it was because Seojoon is still half-convinced that if Jiwoo leaves his sight, he won't be coming back. The same way that Jiwoo still wakes up before his alarm on most days without meaning to, just to watch the steady rise and fall of Seojoon's chest, proof that this isn't a fever dream.
"Same," Jiwoo says, to which Seojoon pouts.
Homin leans forward, eyes wide and sincere as he looks at Jiwoo. "Please take good care of hyung."
"Ah, fuck," Pilhyun mutters. He pulls his phone from his pocket and begins typing rapidly. "Jiwoo, I'll need the names of all your social media accounts. And any skeletons in your closet I don't know about, big or small. Even an unpaid parking ticket."
"He doesn't have a license," Seojoon says.
Pilhyun finishes whatever he was typing and pockets his phone before shoving two pieces of kimbap into his mouth in quick succession. When he's finished chewing, he announces, "This is going to make my job more difficult, but I still like you guys together."
Seojoon's hand finds Jiwoo's under the table and squeezes. The smile he offers Jiwoo isn't a movie star grin, but something softer, a private sort of affection that makes Jiwoo duck his head in embarrassment. "I like us together too," Seojoon says.
"Ya, I'm eating here," Pilhyun complains.
Seojoon fields offers right and left after the scandal clears, but the first role he takes is, according to the news articles that Seojoon read aloud to him over breakfast, "an unexpected choice." Not the highly anticipated political thriller or the romantic comedy alongside a rising actress, but an indie project made by a director whose last work was a short film, sixteen minutes of a couple breaking up over a romantic dinner.
Jiwoo's always preferred dramas to movies, but he watches it with Seojoon anyway. The film did well on the festival circuit, Seojoon tells him, and despite his skepticism, Jiwoo can see why. The director has a knack for colors and light, capturing the soft flicker of candlelight on the female lead's face as her boyfriend says something cruel, and the waitress's shadow neatly cleaving the table between the couple in two. By the end of the sixteen minutes, Seojoon is sniffling and Jiwoo pulls him in for a hug, Seojoon's head against his chest.
"What made you choose this one?" Jiwoo asks.
"I don't know," Seojoon says. He sits up as the credits begin to roll, stretching his arms up. Jiwoo's eyes automatically track the sliver of exposed skin until Seojoon's sweater falls back into place. "Maybe I wanted to do something interesting. Or maybe I wanted to show that I'm more than just a pretty boy who gets into fights, no matter what anyone still thinks."
From there, Seojoon's days start early and Jiwoo's always home late, rushing to shower the smell of kitchen off his skin before Seojoon falls asleep without him. On the nights when a delayed dinner rush means Jiwoo gets home even later, all he gets is a good morning kiss at dawn and the sight of reusable containers washed and dried on the counter, because the least Jiwoo can do is make sure Seojoon eats well.
Jiwoo wakes up one morning to the sound of coffee beans grinding in the kitchen. He finds Seojoon, wearing his glasses and a sweater that he'd stolen from Jiwoo, shoulder seams hanging just a bit askew.
"Shouldn't you be gone?" Jiwoo asks, checking his phone with mild alarm.
Seojoon turns when he hears Jiwoo, switching off the grinder. His hair is sticking up in every different direction. "It's raining," he says cheerfully. "We were supposed to shoot outdoor scenes all day and there wasn't enough notice to adjust the schedule. I'm all yours today."
"Sit, then," Jiwoo says, attempting to elbow Seojoon out of the way. "Let me cook something for you."
"It's fine," Seojoon says. He catches Jiwoo around the waist, tugging his body in close and kissing Jiwoo like he hasn't seen him in weeks instead of just hours. That's the thing about Seojoon—he's always this happy to see Jiwoo, a puppy constantly waiting for his owner to come home.
Jiwoo lets himself be kissed, soft and easy, making out just to make out.
When the moment is done, Jiwoo shoves Seojoon's dopey grinning face aside. "Seriously, hyung, sit. Do you want an omelette? Toast?"
"Omelette," Seojoon says, obediently taking a seat. He rests his chin on his hand. "You've officially converted me to eggs. Why haven't you won a Michelin star yet? Who do I need to talk to?"
"I don't think food critics take advice from actors," Jiwoo says. He lays out the ingredients he'd scrounged together from the fridge onto the counter, reaching for his cutting board and go-to knife. He starts with the mushrooms, giving them a quick dice.
"Hey, I was thinking," Seojoon says behind him.
"Hmm?"
"There are some things I need to pick up from my apartment," Seojoon says. "Want to come with me?"
Seojoon's old place is in a Hannam-dong high rise. Jiwoo would never admit to it, but back when they'd first met, he'd looked up Kang Seojoon on Naver, trying to see what the scandal Pilhyun had referenced was all about. He remembers a headline he'd seen–Actor Kang Seojoon purchases luxury apartment for 6 billion won. All in cash, the article noted. This had done nothing to improve Jiwoo's first impression of Seojoon.
The building is sleek, full of mirrors and marble accents from the elevator to Seojoon's door, but the inside of the apartment is nothing like that at all. It's cozier than Jiwoo expected. Big, yeah, with a view of Seoul that probably accounted for a billion won alone, but it's homey all the same.
Seojoon slides him a pair of slippers. "Feel free to look around, I'm just going to pack a bag."
There are touches of Seojoon's personality everywhere. A massive illustration of the solar system hanging in the entryway, the gallery wall of Kang Seojoon fanart, a guitar lying on the leather couch. Jiwoo had never lived anywhere nice enough to decorate—just shitty goshiwons, until he'd gotten the sublet offer from Pilhyun, and then he felt like there was no point in putting effort into a place that wasn't even his.
"There's probably water in the fridge if you want anything," Seojoon calls from his bedroom.
Jiwoo pauses in front of a tall bookshelf. There are framed pictures—Seojoon with Pilhyun and Homin, posing with props and silly glasses at some kind of event, a group photo with the crew on some set, and one that's unmistakably a younger Seojoon. He looks about seventeen or eighteen in the photo, hair cropped short and eyebrows as strong as ever. There's an older woman on his left and a man on the right that looks so much like Seojoon that Jiwoo almost feels as if he's caught a glimpse of Seojoon's future.
"That was when I first started out," Seojoon says. Jiwoo hadn't heard him approaching. "I think it was at an agency dinner or something."
Seojoon's voice is oddly distant in the way he sometimes gets when he talks about his past, like he's telling a story to an audience instead of the person in front of him. "They look nice," Jiwoo says, mostly just to say something.
"Really?" Seojoon laughs a little, stuffing his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie. "I guess they do. My parents were never bad people, they were just never that interested in being parents. As soon as I got a manager they were all too happy to hand over most of their responsibilities. Taking me to school, picking me up, showing up to my graduation. They were just there to benefit from the money I was making."
"Oh," Jiwoo says. He looks back at the photo, at the closed-mouth smile on the young Seojoon's face. Imagines him watching his parents board a flight to Italy and knowing they wouldn't be back. "You deserved better."
"Can't change the past," Seojoon says.
If Jiwoo knew how to give affection as freely as Seojoon, he'd probably say something like, I will make sure you never feel unloved again. But words have never come that easy to him, and as he slides his hand into Seojoon's pocket, finding the warmth of his hand and squeezing, Jiwoo can only hope that Seojoon knows what he wants to say, even if he can't say it.
He hasn't even made it to the back of the restaurant to set down his things yet when Jiwoo is accosted by two of his coworkers.
"How do you know Kang Seojoon?" one of them, the waitress who's barely out of high school, asks.
Jiwoo's first reaction is cold panic. Someone must've leaked a photo of them, or they were caught by Dispatch hanging out at their spot by the river. Another scandal that could derail, or even end Seojoon's career.
"I—" Jiwoo starts to say, but then the other part-timer thrusts her phone into Jiwoo's hand.
HIS SIDE OF THE STORY, the headline reads. EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH KANG SEOJOON. BY LEE YOONSEUL, SBN STATION. Yoonseul had sent him the article a few weeks ago, but Jiwoo never got around to reading it. He already knew Seojoon's side of the story.
"Scroll down," the part-timer instructs him, waving her hand urgently.
"Sunbae, what's he like in person?" the waitress says, hands poised at Jiwoo's elbow like she's barely holding back from grabbing him in excitement. "Is he just as handsome?"
Lee Yoonseul: Many of your fans are curious. What have you been doing during your hiatus?
Kang Seojoon: While the circumstances weren't my choice, I've been working without a break for the last few years, so I tried to spend my time off well. I was able to rest and try some new things I've wanted to learn for a while. I was able to get some cooking lessons from my good friend, Chef Han Jiwoo. Hopefully my fans will be able to see one of those lessons on my YouTube channel soon.
"He's not bad," Jiwoo says.
"Is he nice? He looks nice. Does he smell good?"
Jiwoo is spared any further questioning. His boss pokes his head out from behind the kitchen door and shouts, "Han Jiwoo, I need you on prep."
Still, he screenshots the paragraph and sends it to Seojoon during his break. good friend?
we seem like pretty good friends to me, Seojoon texts back immediately, followed by a series of winking stickers, including one of his own face, decorated with tiny pink hearts.
Jiwoo pockets his phone, smiling.
In the middle of delivering a particularly good blowjob, Seojoon pulls off Jiwoo's dick and asks, "So, how many people have you dated?"
Jiwoo gasps, a noise halfway between enjoyment and confusion. "You want to talk about this now?"
"Advanced interrogation technique," Seojoon says with an impish grin.
"Interrogation-" Jiwoo repeats, shaking his head. "Why do you need to know?"
Seojoon's tongue swipes along the head of Jiwoo's cock, teasing. "I'm a naturally curious person," he says. He then takes Jiwoo's cock in his mouth, swallowing around it, wet and enthusiastic. He keeps going until Jiwoo is close to coming, heat building at the base of Jiwoo's spine and—"Girls or boys?"
Yanked back from the edge, Jiwoo groans, hand going limp around a fistful of sheets. He wrenches one eye open. "Hyung."
"Well?"
"Both."
"Did you date Kim Hyungki?"
Jiwoo cranes his neck to look down at Seojoon, glaring. "Do you want to die?"
Seojoon has the nerve to laugh. "Han Jiwoo, you're scary."
"It's four in the morning," Seojoon says, looking at Jiwoo, then his phone screen, then back to Jiwoo.
"I know. Get up," Jiwoo says.
"You know," Seojoon repeats, shaking his head. "Where are we going?"
Jiwoo tugs on Seojoon's shoulder. "You'll find out when we get there."
"You're lucky I like you," Seojoon says.
Where they're going is the wholesale market across the river, a journey that Seojoon takes bleary-eyed, resting on Jiwoo's shoulder in the back of a cab. The idea had occurred to Jiwoo at the end of dinner service, a sudden overwhelming urge to let Seojoon in on this thing that he loves. Jiwoo is not spontaneous by nature, but he thinks maybe Seojoon is rubbing off on him.
"At my first restaurant job, I was in high school. I was just a dishwasher at this grilled fish restaurant," Jiwoo explains as he guides Seojoon through rows of wholesale vendors, past stacked cartons of fruit and bundles of green onions the size of Jiwoo's entire arm. "And one Friday night shift, my boss asked if I wanted to tag along to the auction. It was barely after midnight."
By now, even with the sun barely beginning to peek over the horizon, most of the day's chaos has already ended, but there are still open crates of seafood being sold. Jiwoo stops when they reach the edge of the auction floor. The pungent smell of fish and ripe tangerines filters through Jiwoo's mask.
The auctioneer's voice booms out over the loudspeaker as old men in long aprons and bright yellow boots inspect wriggling sea bass and salmon.
"I just thought it was such a cool thing," Jiwoo says in between sales. The market is cold, but Seojoon stands close enough to keep Jiwoo warm. "These fresh fish and ingredients arriving here, all these people taking them back to their markets or to restaurants. Hearing my boss explain why he would pick one fish over another. It gave me an idea of what I wanted to do."
"You look cute when you're being nerdy about fish," Seojoon teases.
"Be quiet," Jiwoo says.
The sun is finally beginning to rise when they leave the auction and head into the mall. Jiwoo leads them past the rows of dry goods and the butcher stands to the fish vendors. Wide brown flatfish, lobsters and crabs pressing against the glass of their tanks, sea cucumbers and abalone. Jiwoo finds a stand that looks good and barters with the ahjumma until they settle on a deal, and she sends an order of clams and rockfish up to the restaurant to prepare.
"No one is going to recognize you here," Jiwoo says, as Seojoon tugs his baseball cap further down over his head in the restaurant's back corner. "It's six in the morning and it's only fishermen here."
Which turns out to be an underestimation of Seojoon's star power, because when the restaurant ahjumma sets the plate of sashimi down between them, she gives Seojoon a long look and shakes her finger at him. "Aren't you the one on the Chamisul bottle?"
"Oh, no," Jiwoo says. Seojoon slumps down into his padded coat. "He gets that a lot."
They make it through breakfast without any further incident. Seojoon makes lots of pleased noises as he tries the sashimi and the clams, playing it up like the ham he is as Jiwoo watches fondly across the table.
Jiwoo had never taken any of his exes here, never really had the urge to integrate anyone else into all the parts of his life like this, or to share in joy just for the sake of it. With Seojoon, it's the first time he's ever felt like offering up every piece of himself to someone, trusting that they would want to hold each one.
Jiwoo probably should've seen it coming. Seojoon had been asking Jiwoo to teach him how to make pasta for weeks, practically every waking moment until Jiwoo made the time to show him how to make carbonara. Seojoon was normally an attentive student, but he even took notes this time, asking questions like, "So you salt the dough and the pasta water?" and "Why do you combine the flour and the egg like that?"
"It's just carbonara," Jiwoo said, whisking his egg and cheese mixture. "It's pretty easy."
"But I want to make it right," Seojoon insisted.
So really, Jiwoo should've known to expect that, on the evening of his birthday, Seojoon would present to him a bowl of carbonara.
And yet—"Are you surprised?"
"Yeah," Jiwoo says. There's a lump forming in his throat. Birthdays had never been a big deal in his family and he'd spent the last few either working or alone. He didn't like to be the center of attention and he hated the way receiving gifts only made him feel indebted. He'd told Seojoon all this months ago, before they even started dating, and Seojoon had replied, playfully sarcastic, over familiar in a way that Jiwoo felt he hadn't earned, Is there anything you do like?, but clearly he'd been listening. Just the two of them and a simple gesture of kindness. "No seaweed soup?"
Seojoon fidgets with the ties of his apron. "Well, I wanted to make something you like but if—"
"No, I was kidding," Jiwoo says, catching Seojoon's fingers and intertwining them with his own. Seojoon squeezes his hand. "It looks really good, hyung. Thank you."
The carbonara isn't perfect. The sauce is lumpy and the dough had clearly been too dry, but still. It's the best meal Jiwoo's had in a long time.
Jiwoo looks across Seojoon, watching as a few strands of pasta slide off his fork a moment before he tries to eat them. His mouth remains open, then turns downward into a pout, and Jiwoo laughs. Seojoon catches his eye. "What?"
"I love you," Jiwoo says. It bubbles up through his chest to his throat before he even thinks about it, as though the words had been on the tip of his tongue without him realizing. His face goes warm, but it's not with self-consciousness.
Seojoon's hand hovers with his fork at his mouth as he blinks, like he's making sure that he didn't mishear. Then he smiles, cheeks dimpling, and Jiwoo is even more sure that he meant what he just said. "I love you too," Seojoon says.