Phone Calls

“Um...hello?” Jiyong says when he answers the phone.

Seunghyun immediately sees that this was a weird idea, but he’s too giddy from the turn the afternoon has taken to worry much. “Hi,” he says.

“You’re still in there, right? You didn’t sneak out the window or anything?”

“Yeah, I’m in here,” Seunghyun says. As they neared his apartment, his mind had flashed through all the things he didn’t want Jiyong to see: the dishes in the sink, the dirty clothes on the floor, the various hair products he’d been experimenting with strewn about his bathroom. So he’d asked Jiyong to wait in the hall for a few minutes while he went inside and cleaned up faster than he ever has before. “I just...I thought it would be cute. One more phone call? You know?” He laughs self-consciously as he approaches the door.

“Ohh, okay. Gotcha. Yeah, that’s pretty cute. But, uh...how’s the apartment looking?”

“Not too bad,” Seunghyun says. He opens the door to find Jiyong standing before him, phone to his ear. “I hope,” Seunghyun adds. They end the call and smile at each other. Seunghyun forgets himself for a moment, lost in Jiyong’s bright eyes, but then he steps aside. “Come in.”

Jiyong toes off his shoes and wanders into the living area, eyes sweeping every corner of the room. “So this is the background I’ve been seeing all these weeks.”

“This is it,” says Seunghyun. He looks around too, trying to judge it from Jiyong’s perspective. He thinks his apartment is pretty nice – it’s the best he could do with it with his salary, anyway. “You want a tour or anything? No looking in the closets,” he jokes.

“Maybe later,” says Jiyong. He sits on the couch.

Seunghyun is still hovering between the kitchen and the living area. He hasn’t had anyone new in his apartment in a long time. “Do you want a drink or anything?” he asks.

“Would that help?”

“Help? Help what?”

“Help you relax so you’ll come over here and make out with me,” Jiyong says, flashing him a grin.

A pleasant blush tingles Seunghyun’s cheeks. “It might,” he says. “But I guess we could just skip the drink.”

And then he’s on the couch, and Jiyong’s in his arms and their mouths are slotted together and it’s so easy, so easy and good and right. Seunghyun hasn’t been with anyone in ages and he was concerned he’d somehow forgotten how to kiss and touch and make another person feel good, but so far Jiyong’s not complaining.

They’re like that for a while; Seunghyun couldn’t say how long. Their exploration is initially patient, unhurried – touching done over clothes; breathing relaxed. But at some point Jiyong’s leg hooks around Seunghyun’s and his fingers curl hard against the nape of Seunghyun’s neck and he makes this little sound in the back of his throat and everything shifts. Seunghyun’s panting slightly when their mouths break apart. “Should we relocate?” Jiyong asks.

“Relocate?”

“To the bedroom.”

Seunghyun blinks, making sure he heard Jiyong correctly. “The bedroom?” he repeats. He swallows hard, his mouth suddenly dry. “Do you want to...go there?”

Beneath him, Jiyong shrugs. “Why not?”

“Well...we just met.”

Jiyong laughs. “But we know each other,” he says. He presses his palm against Seunghyun’s and laces their fingers together. “We know each other really well. And I like you, and you like me, and we’re adults, and we’re alone on a Sunday in this lovely apartment…” He smiles. “And you seem to want to,” he adds, brushing their joined hands against the bulge already rising in Seunghyun’s pants.

Heat flares under Seunghyun’s skin. “Of course I want to,” he says. “But...it’s not too fast?”

“Not for me,” Jiyong says. “Is it for you? It’s okay if it is.”

“Well, it’s just...ah...I haven’t, uh, done this in a while.”

“Ah,” Jiyong says, scrunching up his nose and nodding. “Me either.” He giggles. “Three months.” Seunghyun immediately decides not to inform Jiyong that when he said ‘a while’ he was talking years, not months. “So we’re both out of practice,” Jiyong continues, “and it’s our first time with each other, so we’ll probably be kind of out-of-synch and weird… But I really, really want to have weird, out-of-synch sex with you. As soon as possible.”

Seunghyun knows the decision has been made when a shiver of anticipation goes through him at Jiyong’s confession. “Okay,” says Seunghyun. “We can relocate.”

Jiyong’s hopeful smile stretches into a lascivious grin. They untangle and move to get off the couch, but just as he’s swung his feet onto the floor, Seunghyun is struck with a horrible realization. “Fuck,” he moans.

“What?”

“I don’t have anything,” Seunghyun says. “Lube or condoms or anything. I might – shit, I might have a condom somewhere, but I think it’s expired…” He’s standing and taking a step towards his liquor cabinet (because he’s pretty sure he threw a condom he got from a co-worker as a gag back there a few years ago) when Jiyong grabs his wrist.

“Actually…” Jiyong says. He let’s go of Seunghyun’s wrist to stand and dig both hands into his pockets, coming up with several condoms and packets of lube. “We’re okay,” he says.

Seunghyun’s voice comes out faint. “You...you’ve had those this whole time?”

Jiyong shrugs. “I’m an optimist.”

In the bedroom, Jiyong deposits his stash on the nightstand and turns back to Seunghyun with intention in his eyes. Seunghyun is still in a daze, realizing more with each passing second how Jiyong planned this – how he put all that stuff in his pockets when he got dressed this morning with the idea of going to bed with Seunghyun today. Jiyong, who is pretty and graceful and so much cooler than Seunghyun that it’s embarrassing. Just last night Seunghyun was sitting on this bed wondering if Jiyong was going on a date with his boyfriend, and now…

“What are you into?” Jiyong asks him. He’s back in front of Seunghyun again, his hands roaming Seunghyun’s chest.

“Huh?” That’s the best Seunghyun’s got at the moment.

“How do you like to do it,” Jiyong says patiently, “do you like to top?”

Seunghyun nods. “I’ve only ever been on top. Is...is that okay?” Seunghyun has never had this conversation before. He’s only been with one other guy, and his ex took the lead in everything; showed him everything. Seunghyun feels a sudden prick of anxiety that he’s not experienced enough to know how to satisfy Jiyong.

But Jiyong flashes him a grin. “That’s perfect,” he says. He plants a soft kiss high on Seunghyun’s cheekbone. “You have no idea –” he kisses the side of Seunghyun’s face – “how long –” the hinge of his jaw – “I’ve been dreaming –” his neck – “about you –” back to his jaw again – “fucking me,” Jiyong whispers directly into Seunghyun’s ear.

Seunghyun comes back to himself in a blaze of heat. He wraps an arm around Jiyong’s waist and kisses him, ravenous and raw. Jiyong responds eagerly, and soon they're on the bed together and Jiyong is pulling his sweater over his head to reveal the smooth, tanned planes of his chest. Jiyong has shown Seunghyun some of his tattoos over facetime – the Keith Haring running heart on his forearm; the Roman numerals along the top of his shoulder – but now Seunghyun can see several new ones: a Dragonball where his arm meets his chest; English words along his ribs; two Xs above his bellybutton.

Seunghyun is so distracted by these bits of Jiyong's mind inked across his skin that he forgets what the next logical step is and doesn't notice Jiyong opening his shirt until he's got two buttons undone. When Seunghyun realizes what's happening, he grabs Jiyong's wrist to stop him on a reflex.

Jiyong freezes, like an animal caught in headlights. "What's wrong?" he asks.

"I...that..." Seunghyun struggles to put it into words. "I...I don't like this part," he finally mumbles.

Jiyong stares at him for a long moment, lost, but then understanding lights his eyes. "Oh," he says, and lets his hand fall from Seunghyun's shirt. Jiyong knows something of Seunghyun's feelings about this: One Saturday afternoon in the summer, he'd questioned what on earth had possessed Seunghyun to wear a long-sleeve shirt in the oppressive heat. So Jiyong’s heard about how Seunghyun was fat as a kid and that he doesn't like exposing skin – he just doesn't know how deep that distaste goes.

"But...it's me," Jiyong says. "I'm not some stranger on the street. I know you." Seunghyun can't bring himself to meet Jiyong's eyes; he just stares at the sheets, on fire with embarrassment. "I know you can't dance," Jiyong continues. "I know you need three alarms to wake up in the morning. I know you're particular about your furniture but then you throw your dirty clothes all over everything. And I know all your dirty clothes are in a ball on the floor of your closet right now," he says, tapping on Seunghyun's thigh and trying to meet his eyes to share a smile. Seunghyun can hardly stand how sweet he is. "And you know me," Jiyong adds. "You know I would never laugh. You know I'd never be disappointed."

"You might be," Seunghyun says. "What if you were?" He just didn't expect this – he didn't have time to prepare himself. Even in the café when he realized Jiyong was interested in him; even as they walked back to his apartment – he didn't think Jiyong would want to move this fast.

"I won't be," Jiyong says firmly. "How could I be? I don't even care. I don't care about that at all. That's not why I wanted to meet. And anyway, even if I was in this for your looks, your face makes up for anything that could possibly be happening under your shirt.” Seunghyun can’t help but chuckle at that. Jiyong smiles, encouraged. “Listen, if you don’t want to take your shirt off, that’s okay. You can just leave it on for today. We can work up to it.”

That’s what finally settles Seunghyun: the promise of doing this again. Moving fast, as though he might be able to outpace the anxiety within him, he undoes the remaining buttons on his shirt and shrugs it off, eyes squeezed shut to avoid seeing Jiyong’s reaction. He knows, objectively, that it could be worse (it has been worse), and he’s built up some muscle in the last few years, but he’s so pale and he still has these horrible stretch marks in places, and it’s just so much. So much of him is bare now.

“Yah,” Jiyong says after a moment. Seunghyun feels hands on either side of his face. “Yah, yah, yah. I have to tell you something.”

Reluctantly, Seunghyun opens his eyes. “What?”

“You’re an idiot,” Jiyong says. He starts laughing. “You’re such a fucking idiot.” He crushes his mouth against Seunghyun’s.

This day has already been so surreal and full of surprises that somehow it’s not scary to let Jiyong’s hands ramble across his naked chest and back; to let his tongue glide over his hardened nipples. It seems like with every breath he becomes a little more lost in it, a little more frenetic, a little more lustful. They wriggle out of their pants and underwear; any anxiety Seunghyun might have had about that is immediately dispelled by the sight of the tattoos Jiyong has high on his thighs. Seunghyun runs his hands over them, digging his fingers into what little is there, and only removes a hand to reach for the lube.

Jiyong is lying on his back with Seunghyun between his legs. He watches with darkened, wanton eyes as Seunghyun tears open the packet and squeezes some onto his fingers. He bites his lip and Seunghyun thinks it’s maybe the sexiest thing he’s ever seen. Jiyong knocks his knees together then, his ankles pressing against Seunghyun’s legs as he kneels before him. “Is it cold?” Jiyong asks. In answer, Seunghyun draws a smiley face on Jiyong’s stomach with a greased finger. “Okay,” says Jiyong, apparently satisfied with the temperature. He parts his knees again and brings them all the way down to his chest so his thighs are flat against him and his hips are angled up, giving Seunghyun easy access. Impressed, Seunghyun can only stare at him for a moment. Jiyong arches an eyebrow. “I’m pretty flexible,” he says, biting his lip again to suppress a smile.

Seunghyun’s only response is to press a finger against Jiyong’s entrance. The cocky smirk fades and he draws a deep breath when Seunghyun pushes his middle finger in. Seunghyun forces himself to go slowly; he has no interest in making this anything but pleasurable for Jiyong. He loosely pumps Jiyong’s cock in time with his finger, searching all the while for that spot he knows must be there. He doesn’t find it until he has two fingers in and is gently scissoring them apart. Jiyong whimpers; a more pronounced version of the sound from the back of his throat when they were on the couch. Excited, Seunghyun leans down to kiss him, pressing against the firm bump inside him again and again.

“Oh, fuck,” Jiyong moans. “More.” Seunghyun adds a third finger, fucking Jiyong in earnest now. “Fuck shit fuck,” Jiyong says. “I’m ready. That’s enough. Fuck me, I’m ready.”

Seunghyun was hard already but Jiyong’s command makes him achingly so. He removes his fingers and Jiyong whines, but Seunghyun can’t open a condom one-handed. When Jiyong sees what he’s doing, he sits up and grabs the packet from Seunghyun’s slick fingers, tearing it open and rolling the condom down Seunghyun’s cock. They kiss feverishly as Seunghyun smears lube over himself. “Come on,” Jiyong says, lying down and pulling back his legs again.

Seunghyun doesn’t need to be told twice. He lines himself up and eases in, doing his best not to rush it. But then Jiyong rolls his hips impatiently and Seunghyun starts to move, slowly at first but faster when Jiyong shows no signs of discomfort. Quite the opposite, in fact – he clutches at Seunghyun’s arms and sighs, mouth parted in a pretty bow.

Seunghyun can hardly believe that he’s watching Kwon Jiyong writhe beneath him like this. He feels drunk; that this is a Sunday afternoon in his own life does not seem possible. Because Jiyong, Jiyong is the man of his dreams. Jiyong is funny and kind and thoughtful. He is clever and interesting and even though Seunghyun isn’t, somehow they never run out of things to talk about. And he is gorgeous and graceful and ineffably seductive. He sticks his chin out when he’s being stubborn and runs his hand through his hair when he’s self-conscious and Seunghyun didn’t know that those were exactly the things he most wanted another person to do, but it turns out they are. And by some miracle, Jiyong looks up at him like Seunghyun’s just what Jiyong wanted, too.

They wiggle and adjust, searching for the right position, the right rhythm, and just when Seunghyun thinks maybe they aren’t going to find it this time around, they do. Jiyong moans in exactly the way porn stars are always trying and failing to imitate. “Fuck,” Jiyong cries. “Yes. There. There, there, there.”

Seunghyun moans in response and picks up the pace. He feels the shiver that runs through Jiyong.

“When did you start to want this?” Jiyong asks breathlessly. “How long ago?”

When? He forgets. Forever, it feels like. “Months,” Seunghyun grunts.

“When you saw my face?”

“Before.”

“Tell me.”

Seunghyun doesn’t know what Jiyong wants to hear, but he’s in no position to contemplate, so he just starts talking. “I – I've been thinking about you for so long –”

“When you touch yourself –” Jiyong’s brows knit and his eyes shut and he can’t seem to finish his sentence, but it’s not difficult to catch his meaning.

“Yes,” Seunghyun pants. “Only you.”

His hands on Seunghyun’s forearms, Jiyong digs in hard – it’d hurt if his fingernails had any length to them. “You pictured this?”

“No,” Seunghyun says. “This is better than what I could imagine.” He sees now how his words affect Jiyong, how each rumble from Seunghyun’s throat elicits whimpers and squeezes. He babbles on, everything in his head, caring only to match the cadence with the thrust of his hips and his hand on Jiyong’s cock. “You're so beautiful,” he says, “So, so beautiful; I only want you –”

Jiyong comes messy all over his stomach and Seunghyun follows shortly after. He lets Jiyong pull him down to fit their mouths together. Jiyong kisses him in a way that is both hungry and lazy, like he wants to soak in anything and everything Seunghyun has to give. They stay joined for a little while, basking in the moment, but finally Seunghyun can no longer ignore his anxiety that he’s crushing Jiyong’s tiny frame or the sticky discomfort of their sweaty bodies pressed together. He gets up and turns from Jiyong to remove the condom, careful not to spill its contents on his rug.

“Come back,” Jiyong calls.

“One second,” Seunghyun says, stepping into the bathroom to dispose of the condom.

“Why don’t you have a trash bin by your bed?” Jiyong asks when Seunghyun returns.

“I’m an idiot, remember?” Seunghyun teases.

“Oh yeah,” says Jiyong, smiling. He holds up the tissues he’s just gotten from the nightstand and used to mop himself up. “You should definitely get one.”

Another trip to the bathroom later, Seunghyun dives back into bed and Jiyong’s open arms. He thinks he should be wound up and full of adrenaline – he just fucked Jiyong – but he’s more relaxed than he’s been in a long time. He’s nearly falling asleep when Jiyong breaks the silence. “Yah,” he says, “have you really liked me for months?”

“Hmm?” It takes Seunghyun a second to process Jiyong’s words. “Yeah, I have,” he says.

Jiyong pokes him in the ribs hard enough to clear the sleepy fog from his brain. “Why didn’t you say anything?” Jiyong asks. “You knew I was queer from the start.”

Seunghyun shrugs. “I didn’t think you thought of me like that.”

“You didn’t think I thought of you like that? Are you joking? Why would I have called you so many times if I wasn’t interested?”

“I don’t know,” says Seunghyun. “Because you wanted your toaster oven back?”

“But I mean, after I got it back,” Jiyong says impatiently.

“Wait, wait – you got it back?” The first thing Jiyong ever said to Seunghyun was “Give me back my toaster oven you fucker,” and his subsequent calls had started much the same way until Jiyong finally started calling Seunghyun to talk to him instead of trying to call his ex. At some point Jiyong stopped talking about his ex and the stolen toaster oven and Seunghyun had forgotten about it. (The toaster oven, that is; Jiyong’s ex was still a fixture in Seunghyun’s thoughts.)

“Yeah. Dami-noona and I snuck into his apartment while he was out and stole it back.”

“You never told me that. When did that happen?” Seunghyun’s a little hurt that Jiyong didn’t bother to tell him this story.

“I don’t know, like, a week after we broke up?”

“A – a week?” That doesn’t make any sense. Jiyong must be misremembering things. “You called me looking for that toaster oven for at least two weeks.”

“Well…” Jiyong shrugs and gives Seunghyun a bashful smile.

Seunghyun stares at him, slowly piecing it together. But what he’s coming up with still doesn’t make sense. “So...you were calling me on purpose?” he asks, and even though that seems like the only reasonable conclusion to draw, he’s still surprised when Jiyong nods. “For how long, exactly?”

“Um…” Jiyong taps on his lower lip with his index finger. “I mean...the first and second time were accidents. And then after the second time I saved your number into my phone so I wouldn’t call you by mistake anymore. So I guess, um...all the times after that?” He smiles weakly at Seunghyun. “Except the time when you were waiting to hear about your job,” he adds hastily. “That time, my, uh, my friend called you as a joke and didn’t show me until you’d picked up, so I just had to pretend like I was trying to call my ex again. But all the other times...that was just me wanting to talk to you.”

“You...you...after the second call?” Seunghyun huffs. “I can’t believe...all those times!”

“I can’t believe you thought I would let that idiot keep my toaster oven for that long.” When Seunghyun continues to gape at him, his expression turns tender and he lays his hand along Seunghyun’s jaw, rubbing his cheek with his thumb. “You really couldn’t tell?” he asks. “I thought I was being so obvious. I liked you so much, right from the start. That second call, when I started crying, you were so kind to me even though you were annoyed… I was sure you knew I was calling to talk to you after that.”

“Me?”

JIyong laughs. “Yeah, you. Definitely not some asshole who stole my toaster oven, anyway. You know, I kind of resent that he’s technically the one who brought us together. I never even liked him that much. We only dated for, like, a month, and he was an idiot.”

Seunghyun lets Jiyong rattle on, still stunned by this revelation. When he gets over the initial shock of finding he’d been lied to, it occurs to him that Jiyong’s just confessed to having liked him this entire time. Liked him so much that he made up excuses to talk to him.

“Yah,” Seunghyun says, raising his eyebrows and smirking, “you totally had a crush on me. For months.”

Jiyong rolls his eyes, smiling. “Yeah, I did.”

“Why did it take us so long to meet up?”

Jiyong laughs. “I have no fucking idea.”

“We’re both idiots, huh?” says Seunghyun.

“Yeah. We are.” He leans in and kisses Seunghyun. “But you more.”

They spend a few more minutes like that, giggling and kissing, before Seunghyun’s self-consciousness catches up with him and he has to get up and put some clothes on. Jiyong has no such qualms and remains naked, which Seunghyun can’t say he minds. Jiyong doesn’t comment on Seunghyun getting dressed, but he does sit up to watch him. When Seunghyun’s finished, Jiyong picks up his phone and pats the spot next to him on the bed. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s take a picture.”

“I’m shy,” Seunghyun pouts, but he gets into position next to Jiyong anyway.

“Just be glad I waited until you got dressed,” Jiyong says. He taps in his passcode for his phone and it unlocks to his call log. The most recent call is from a contact named “Sexy Face Stranger”, and for the briefest instant Seunghyun panics that Jiyong’s talking to some sexy-faced guy, but then he realizes that the timestamp corresponds to the phone call they had as he was letting Jiyong into the apartment.

By the time Seunghyun gets his mouth open, Jiyong’s already in the camera app. “Yah, go back,” Seunghyun says.

“Huh?”

“Go back to your call log.”

Jiyong obliges. “What?” he asks, glancing over the list with apparent confusion.

“Is that top one me?” Seunghyun asks, smirking.

“Oh,” says Jiyong, “Um…”

Seunghyun takes the phone from Jiyong’s hand and opens Sexy Face Stranger’s contact information. He finds his phone number and a screenshotted photo from one of their facetime calls. “‘Sexy Face Stranger’, huh?” he says smugly.

“You were ‘Sexy Voice Stranger’ at first,” Jiyong admits. “But then we started facetiming…”

“But I’m not a stranger anymore,” Seunghyun says.

“You’re not,” Jiyong agrees. “I just never bothered to change it.”

On an impulse, Seunghyun goes into edit mode, taps on the name field, and clears it. He enters the word ‘Boyfriend’ and hits save.

He’s feeling pretty proud of himself, but then he looks at Jiyong’s face and sees that his expression is frozen and strange. Seunghyun can’t read him yet, and he’s suddenly horrified at what he just did. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, I’m just...um, it’s a joke? I know we haven’t talked about that, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to…” How could he be so fucking stupid? Today has been amazing and now he’s made it weird. Fuck.

“Yeah, I guess we should talk about that,” Jiyong says slowly, still staring at his phone. He looks up at Seunghyun. “I want to be your boyfriend; do you want to be my boyfriend?”

Seunghyun blinks. Is this real? Is it actually okay? “Yes,” he breathes.

“Okay, we’re boyfriends,” Jiyong says. He goes back to the camera app like they didn’t just make a major decision.

In the first photo Jiyong takes they both look dazed, but by the third they have enormous grins on their faces.

Notes