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He never thought he would meet Jackson Wang again, but he does. At midday, on his way back home in an oddly packed subway, he spots him amongst the passengers. Jackson is already looking at him.
It’s been a long time since high school, but they recognise each other right away, even though they were only mere acquaintances back then. Just a guy they shared school days with but who they never truly talked to.
It’s Jackson who steps towards him first, which seems like the natural order of things.
“Jaebeom ! It’s been a long time.” he whispers enthusiastically since the subway car is filled with quiet, muted talks.
Jaebeom offers a polite smile. “Hey.”
There’s a slightly awkward pause during which Jaebeom thinks that Jackson had changed somehow. But in a good, hotter way.
He’s still shorter than Jaebeom, though.
“I didn’t know you lived here ?” Jaebeom eventually asks.
“Oh, I moved in recently.” He shrugs.
Jaebeom nods. Another mildly uncomfortable silence settles.
“What about… we go for a coffee somewhere ?” Jackson suggests eventually.
Honestly, Jaebeom doesn’t really know why, but he accepts.
Jackson takes a sip of his dark coffee.
“You know, I kinda had a crush on you in high school.” Jackson says.
Jaebeom raises one eyebrow.
“For real ?”
Admittedly, when he was a teenager, Jackson had a crush on every handsome guy he laid eyes on, and the whole school knew that. But still, Jaebeom was one of those guys, both when they were barely seventeen and now.
“Yeah. I mean, you know who I was.”
Which basically means : kind of a slut.
“You were popular.”
“No wonder.” Jackson snorts, a knowing smirk stretching his lips.
He looks down at his coffee, swirling the black liquid in the cup by a swift movement of his wrist, seemingly thinking.
He brings his eyes back on Jaebeom, soaked with intent.
“I haven’t really changed.”
It all makes more sense to Jaebeom now, when he has his fingers wrapped around Jackson’s hard, flushed cock — which is very pretty, by the way — and Jackson letting out a sigh of relief above him.
Especially when he tells Jaebeom, watching attentively the hand stroking his cock :
“Is that a scar, on your finger ?”
Jaebeom looks down at his middle finger, his hand keeping on moving up and down the shaft.
“Yeah, I was scratched by a stray cat.”
Jackson reaches down and Jaebeom’s hand goes still on his cock. Jackson’s forefinger simply grazes along the meandering scar, so delicately, almost reverent.
“It looks like it hurt, but…” Jaebeom shivers imperceptibly. “It’s really pretty.” He tears his gaze away from Jaebeom’s finger to look at him straight in the eyes. “So pretty around my cock.”
Jaebeom nearly chokes on his own spit, staring up at Jackson, awestruck, his cock twitching unexpectedly at the praise, because nobody ever considered praising him before, while Jackson is just looking at him with some sort of warm sincerity.
It seems obvious then, why people loved fucking Jackson and getting fucked by him so much.
Jaebeom’s last relationship wasn’t the best. The worst, in retrospect. Yaehun — that was the guy’s name — wasn’t the kindest, and Jaebeom fell for this love that wasn’t love at all.
Their relationship lasted nine months in total, if you don’t count the three weeks and three days of… breaks : the first one occurred after four months, the second one two months later, the third one happened one month and a half later and the fourth (and last) one, not even two weeks later, one week before Jaebeom ended things for good.
In the beginning, Jaebeom loved Yaehun, and Yaehun loved Jaebeom in return. But soon, things turned sour. Subtly, at first. Little things here and there, a mindless itch under the skin.
But then Jaebeom felt like shit. Everything felt like a stinky, disgusting shit.
He actually made a whole list about why Yaehun was kinda an asshole.
One : he had conflicting demands, repeating stupid things like “Just be yourself.” but getting annoyed when Jaebeom wouldn’t behave or react like he wanted.
One day, Yaehun came back home from work and he was feeling quite down, even though they’d planned to go to an interesting outdoor conference about space, planets and stars tonight, which had been Yaehun’s idea. Jaebeom tried to cheer him up a little but he didn’t want to be pushy or insistent. On the way to the conference, after Yaehun had finally deigned to get going, he told Jaebeom :
“To be honest, you could’ve cheered me up more, like, I don’t know, being more enthusiastic, really trying to brighten my mood. I mean, that’s what I would’ve done in the same situation.”
As if Jaebeom were his life coach.
What an asshole, Jaebeom would think now. But back then, it just made him feel terrible.
Two : one of the earliest and biggest issues was the constant criticism. Some days, Yaehun would say that he loved him and all, but on others, he would bring up a million so-called flaws that he thought Jaebeom should work on. In his defence, some of those reproaches weren’t completely illegitimate, but there was always something that Yaehun was displeased by. “You’re too reserved” this, “I feel like you don’t genuinely love me” that and so on. It got to the point where it looked like Yaehun wanted Jaebeom to be another person entirely.
Three : that’s where things become utterly unfair and frustrating. It had always been lowkey there, but during the last two months the overly possessive side of Yaehun blew up. He would randomly accuse Jaebeom of sleeping around, which didn’t make sense because Jaebeom wasn’t the type to sleep around a lot in the first place.
Four : during the last month, which lasted two weeks and a half rather than one month, Yaehun looked like he just didn’t give a shit about them and Jaebeom anymore. He would simply ignore him, ignore his distress or hurt or whatever.
One night, when they were both in bed, Jaebeom pretended to sob because Yaehun had been so cold all day and Jaebeom had felt so lonely… he wanted his attention, even if he knew it wasn’t fair to act like that. And it ended up being completely useless, because not only Yaehun blatantly ignored him but Jaebeom began to cry for real, even he was taken aback. After several long minutes, Yaehun said :
“Can you keep it quiet ? It’s making noise.”
Jaebeom felt like his heart was crushed.
But let’s be honest, Jaebeom wasn’t perfect either, because nobody is. Sometimes, Yaehun’s reproaches were understandable. Sometimes, Jaebeom fanned the flames, deliberately did stuff to annoy Yaehun. But in the end, Jaebeom is almost sure he suffered more than Yaehun. Because it wasn’t Yaehun who was criticised, it wasn’t Yaehun who was accused of cheating, it wasn’t Yaehun who cried because of something Jaebeom had said either. Yaehun was annoyed, but Jaebeom was hurt.
I mean, he guesses it was like that.
And Jaebeom stayed through it all. Stupidly, blindly, painfully, he stayed. But, one could ask, why ?
That’s a really good question.
Because, there were happy and loving moments as well, during the first fourth months particularly. They created some fuzzy, warm memories together. Jaebeom felt genuinely loved at times and in between the hurtful parts, Yaehun was nice to him, not mean or egoistic. And the sex wasn’t bad, he and Yaehun felt intense, deep things when they were having sex. And Jaebeom grew attached, most of all. Too much for his own good, apparently.
Jaebeom was the one who broke up definitely. There wasn’t any physical violence in their relationship, except for that night when Jaebeom realised it was the time to let go, that they (he) couldn’t continue like this. Long story short : they fought, Yaehun grabbed Jaebeom by the neck, yelling in his face, and he slapped him across the cheek. Jaebeom walked away and didn’t turn back. The next day, he noticed he had bruises covering his neck.
And that’s it. The end.
For four months, Jaebeom felt devastated, miserable and lonely despite everything. He would say that their relationship was bittersweet. Every time he could, he would sleep the sorrow off.
After those four months though, he started not to be so sad anymore. He was angry. Above all, angry at himself, for having allowed someone to hurt him like this, for having been so blind and so dumb and clung to a love that was toxic ; and angry at Yaehun, who could have been sweeter, really.
Jackson went through some hard times as well, before crossing paths with Jaebeom again. Where Jaebeom experienced a toxic relationship, but a relationship nonetheless, Jackson didn’t get to experience one at all.
In high school, Jackson was Mark Tuan’s best friend. They were inseparable, glued to each other, there was no Jackson without Mark. Best friends forever, they would state.
They even went to the same university and before Jackson knew it, he caught feelings for Mark, which is a tame way of saying he fell in love with his supposedly best friend forever, with everything that implied, such as : making love, going on dates and making love again. Wouldn’t it have been such a happy ending if they got together ? It certainly would have been. The best friends of a lifetime becoming lovers for life, would say the newspapers, if there were any.
After they graduated, Jackson’s heart was so swollen it was about to throw it up at Mark’s feet. Mark and he hung out a little less, three times a week instead of every day, because despite living in the same area, they had different schedules now. If anything, the relative distance between them made Jackson’s feelings stronger, bigger beneath his bones, it made his love for Mark spread even more inside. Until he needed to do something about it.
The night Jaebeom walked away, Jackson confessed his love to Mark. But Mark told him, his voice hoarse, biting his lower lip :
“I’m so sorry, Jackson… I really am, but I don’t love you… this way. I’m so sorry.”
Jackson remained speechless for several long, heavy seconds.
“It’s fine, it’s…” he sighed eventually. “I should go.”
It hurt unlike anything had hurt before. The rejection, feeling like a complete fool, knowing nothing would be the same now, it all hurt so much. While Jackson has always been very active sexually, it wasn’t to numb himself or to fill some bottomless void within, no, it was for fun, at parties, when life seems exciting and colourful. It wasn’t to bury the pain.
Besides partially avoiding Mark and pretending nothing had changed between them, Jackson signed up on Tinder to find guys who would be willing to fuck him for one night or one afternoon.
Three months and twelve one-night stands later, Jackson was offered a new job in another city. He accepted the offer, said goodbye to Mark and promised he would call sometimes.
Jackson doesn’t know if he’s still in love with Mark. He’s not sure. But that’s out of the question.
Since they met for the second time in this subway, Jaebeom and Jackson began to fuck regularly. They talk as well, but fucking surely represents the majority of the time they spend together. A friends-with-benefits kind of thing, not anything explicitly exclusive, but well, they haven’t slept with anyone else since they started this. They’re actually good friends, now.
Jackson, living up to expectations, turns out to be the perfect fuck buddy. With him, Jaebeom sees a new range of colours and shapes and textures. He praises Jaebeom and loves being praised, he lets Jaebeom fuck him like a whore and tells Jaebeom he’s such a good, obedient top and all Jaebeom can do is gasp and shiver in answer.
Jackson never criticises him and he doesn’t care about labels or roles or whatever and Jaebeom feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.
“You’ve never thought of getting revenge or something ?” Jackson asks when they’re curled up on Jaebeom’s couch, still basking in the peaceful atmosphere that settles after sex.
“What do you mean ?”
“He hurt you, right ? If I were you, I would have done something to him in retaliation. Nothing crazy but, just… to make it fairer.”
Jaebeom sighs. “It wasn’t all black and white, Jackson. He wasn’t truly mean. It was just toxic between us, the relationship.”
Jackson peers at him suspiciously, his lips a little pursed.
“You said you suffered more than him, though. It looks like he was the one who was the harshest.”
Jaebeom lets out a second sigh.
“I do think I suffered more than him, but I may be wrong, I mean… I don’t really know how it was for him. And that’s not enough of a reason to,” he makes air quotes marks with his fingers, “get revenge anyway.”
“Just something small, to scare him a bit, to show him you stand for yourself !” Jackson insists.
“I should’ve done that from the beginning.” Jaebeom’s gaze becomes distant for a second. “But why do you care so much ? You don’t even know him.”
“Because he made you feel awful and he remains unpunished.”
“It wasn’t that black and white, I told you already. He didn’t commit any crime. ”
“I mean, I could argue with that but fine, whatever.” Jackson surrenders, but it’s obvious his opinion didn’t change one bit.
If you entered Jaebeom’s apartment right now, the first thing you would hear is plenty of wet noises and the sound of clothes shifting against each other.
Then, you would see Jackson and Jaebeom making out on the couch, Jaebeom’s hand cradling Jackson’s face and Jackson’s fingers tangled in Jaebeom’s hair. That’s a regular occurrence for them.
Jackson is eager, as always, more or less taking the lead while Jaebeom seems more nonchalant, but that’s really only what it looks like.
Jackson doesn’t wait too much before his hand wanders down Jaebeom’s torso, past his sternum, past the hem of his pants to the space between his thighs, where there’s an unmistakable bulge stiffening under his fingertips. Jaebeom hisses in a breath at the touch and nips at Jackson’s lower lip.
“You’re already getting hard.” Jackson whispers against his lips, his tone halfway between teasing and appreciative.
“Shut up.” Jaebeom retorts anyway, but it’s breathless, without any bite to it.
Jackson cups Jaebeom’s swelling cock properly, as properly as he can over his pants, and Jaebeom’s hips twitch mindlessly as his hand moves to squeeze Jackson’s nape, a little forcefully but it has Jackson moaning into his mouth.
Jaebeom’s other hand slides down Jackson’s clothed back and remains in the concave curve right above the flesh of Jackson’s ass, before he gives in and kneads the plushness here. It elicits a whimper from Jackson, who presses his hand against Jaebeom’s crotch with more intent.
“I wanna ride you.” Jackson breathes out when they part away, his eyelashes fluttering.
Jaebeom nods wordlessly, his hands forced to leave Jackson’s body when he stands up to undress. Jaebeom watches as Jackson discards his clothes on the floor and when he removes his underwear, his cock hitting faintly his lower stomach. He’s hard, of course. Jaebeom gulps.
“Eh, don’t leave me naked all alone.” Jackson complains when he realises Jaebeom is still on the couch with clothes on. “You too, get undressed.”
Jaebeom huffs but he’s quick to get naked, his cheeks blushing as Jackson watches him strip.
When Jackson can finally straddle Jaebeom’s hips, he reaches back to grab Jaebeom’s cock and line it up with his awaiting hole, the flushed head already pressing against it. Jaebeom inhales sharply and looks up at him with surprised eyes.
“You don’t need to… ?” he wonders, his fingers already creeping towards the cleft of Jackson’s ass.
“I already… did myself.”
Jaebeom’s gaze turns hazier, a drip of precum gliding down his shaft. “Fuck.”
As Jackson sinks slowly onto Jaebeom’s cock, he leans forwards, his lips grazing Jaebeom’s ear.
“Fuck me good, hyung, come on.” he murmurs.
Jaebeom whines sincerely at that, as if those words physically hurt him.
He knows Jackson can handle it, and above all, he knows Jackson wants it, so he begins to pound mercilessly into Jackson’s tight heat, his fingers digging into his hips and Jackson’s cock bouncing against his abdomen.
Somewhere along the way, between Jackson’s words of encouragement and his shameless whines, something in Jaebeom’s chest expands painfully but warmly, almost choking him with its intensity. When he peers at Jackson’s blissed-out face above him, it doesn’t stop growing and when Jackson opens his eyes to look back at him, his gaze glassy and full of something too, it just bursts like the flight of a thousand butterflies in the sky.
It makes him sob, and Jackson notices right away, pressing his forehead against Jaebeom’s.
“You’re so good for me, hyung— always so good.” Jackson pants and that’s all it takes for Jaebeom to come with a cry, pushing Jackson down to bury his cock even deeper into him.
It never happened before, especially as his cock is left untouched, but Jackson comes at the sight of Jaebeom unravelling only, a high-pitched gasp leaving his mouth, his fingers clutching Jaebeom’s shoulders.
It’s not long before Jaebeom’s softening cock slips out, both of them catching their breaths. Jaebeom’s cum starts to leak out his ass but Jackson doesn’t seem to care. Jackson’s cum is smeared all over Jaebeom’s stomach, but he pays it no mind.
For now, they just stare at each other. There’s definitely something which happened and is happening between them but they don’t dare to grasp it, to say the words. They’re too afraid of the sting of rejection or of the story repeating itself.
It remains hanging in the air.
Finding Yaehun on social media turns out to be easier than Jackson thought. He and Jaebeom are still friends on Facebook (do people still use it nowadays ?), probably because they forgot to unfollow each other after Jaebeom decided to call it quits.
It still takes him quite some time, one month exactly, to figure out where he lives and his schedule. He ends up learning that Yaehun lives in a small house a bit out of town, he’s single, he works for an insurance company (which is boring), he goes several days a week to the gym (on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays), he got a haircut one week ago (which is ugly) and he goes visiting his parents every weekend.
What’s really important are the first and the last pieces of information.
“Are you free on Saturday night ?” Jaebeom questions when Jackson is about to leave.
Jackson hums pensively.
“I have something to do late at night, but before that, I can come over, yeah.”
Jaebeom tilts his head because he’s actually curious about what someone could have to do late at night, but he settles for saying : “Alright, see you on Saturday then.”
Jackson leaves Jaebeom’s apartment at about 9 pm, Jaebeom’s cheeks still flushed pink and his hair still dishevelled. He’s beautiful, and before he steps out, Jackson tells him exactly that, which makes Jaebeom’s cheeks turn even pinker.
At 9:25 pm, Jackson comes home. He takes a shower, then eats some cheap chicken-flavoured ramen on his couch. He watches a tv show for two hours or so.
At 11:39 pm, he stuffs his backpack with a bunch of old newspapers folded neatly, two packs of matches, two lighters, a pair of gloves, a face mask and a spanner.
At midnight, he puts a black cap on and gets out of his apartment and by 12:04 am, he sits in his car. The ride to Yaehun’s place takes about one hour, the road is mostly deserted and the moon is full and high in the sky.
At barely one in the morning, Jackson is standing in front of Yaehun’s house with his face mask on. There’s no light emanating from the house, the silence quiet as ever as Jackson tries to make sure there’s nobody in the house and around.
At 1:07 am, he breaks a window at the back of the house with the spanner, his heart pounding frantically beneath his ribcage, but his mind focused. Fortunately, he doesn’t hear any alarm going off when he steps into what appears to be the kitchen. That would have been a huge issue.
His plan is to find anything that seems to hold any sort of emotional value, and burn it down in the living room. Admittedly, it’s a little vague but Jackson feels like that it’s what the asshole deserves. He must be quick, though.
Jackson wanders in the house, looking for items. There’s not much in the kitchen or in the living room, so he decides to go upstairs, where there should be Yaehun’s bedroom.
The stairs crack faintly under his feet. He feels a little hot under the face mask and his hoodie, but he doesn’t pay attention to it.
The house isn’t big so Yaehun’s bedroom is simple to find, it’s right at the left when he reaches the first floor and the door is left ajar.
The bedroom isn’t well decorated, it looks impersonal, a lot of grey tones everywhere. Some of the only things reminding him that a guy lives here are the few clothes piled up on the ground or over the back of a chair, and the fact that the bed is unmade.
Jackson looks around and spots a picture pinned to the wall where the desk is set against. He recognises Yaehun, a little younger but not by much, and two people around him, who are probably his parents. He detaches it from the wall and places it on the desk.
There’s a seemingly old book at the foot of the bed. Jackson doesn’t even read the title and opens it, to find a little note on the first page, signed by Yaehun’s brother. Jackson puts it on the desk beside the picture.
His task is made difficult by the fact that Yaehun doesn’t have many items that are obviously charged with emotional value. He definitely can’t stay too long in here, so eventually, he gathers all of the scattered clothes, takes some more in the closet, a few notebooks (filled with words, he checked) that were on the desk, the book and the picture.
He nearly runs down the stairs with the items in his arms before he dumps them in the middle of the living room, on a fluffy, white but dirty carpet.
His hands are trembling when he pulls the newspaper out of his bag, because what if he gets set on fire as well ? He dismisses the thought quickly and tries to alternate between pieces of newspapers and clothes. He places the book and the pictures on top, with a newspaper over it, and lets out a deep exhale to ground himself. He must do it. The device under the television indicates it’s 1:33 am.
The match shakes between his fingers, and when it lights up, Jackson swears he can feel his pulse in his ears. He drops the burning match where it should go and lights up another until there are eleven lit matches thrown in the pile.
The fire is still timid, sparse little flames slowly burning the newspapers, so he ends up using a lighter, bringing the flickering flame against several newspapers and a bit everywhere else. He backs away swiftly when finally, it flames up, the fire blazing and spreading over the pile, cascading down and even igniting the carpet underneath.
Jackson watches some more, wary and fascinated at the same time, amazed at the fire growing that easily. He observes as the heat of the room increases, as the flames crack louder, as a dark smoke emanates from them, as its smell invades his nostrils. Jackson coughs, and that’s his cue to leave before he catches fire and causes a tragedy.
When he’s out of the house and running from it, his face hot and sweaty, he can’t help but look back at the grey smoke escaping from the broken window, a tangerine light glaring behind the windows as if hell were inside. A sense of satisfaction settles in his guts.
If the whole house ends up burning up in flames, then so be it.
On this quiet Sunday morning, Jaebeom is still in bed, his phone in hand, scrolling mindlessly on Twitter. In the “trends” section on the right of the screen, the fifth one is “house fire”, and somehow that catches his eyes. He clicks on it.
The first thing he sees is a picture of a house, which looks familiar even though it’s burned partially. The surroundings also remind him of something he knows, but he can’t pinpoint it.
There’s some text below the picture, and suddenly it hits him : it’s Yaehun’s house, Yaehun’s street, Yaehun’s neighbourhood. He’s sure of it now. He sits up abruptly in his bed as he read the short paragraph which explains that a fire, apparently criminal, started in this house during the night prior. The neighbours called the firefighters at 2:30 am, when the fire was already well on its way. Fortunately, there were no victims since the house was empty.
Jaebeom’s mind tries to put the pieces together on its own.
He recalls that Jackson told him he had to do something late at night, yesterday. And he remembers that he wondered what Jackson could have to do specifically late at night.
Now he thinks he knows. There’s this something rising in his chest again, but it’s more comforting than overwhelming.
Exactly like Jackson.