Chapter Text
Sunghoon came home to his apartment after a long day of shooting, exhausted out of his mind. On the entire drive back from the studio lot, he tried to remind himself why he was doing this. The Netflix drama he’d been cast in was his biggest role yet. It was going to be his big break. The long hours would all be worth it, in the end.
He shuffled in through his apartment’s front door and the first thing he saw was the dining table, which was laid out and set for two. Whatever was cooking in the kitchen smelled amazing—savory garlic and onions, rich cream, and roasted vegetables.
His roommate, Jake, didn’t cook. Not anything but ramen, anyways. Which meant the person preparing dinner had to be...
“Oh. It’s you,” Jake’s boyfriend said, his disappointment evident in his voice.
No ‘Good evening’. No ‘How have you been lately?’. Not even a ‘Hello’.
Whatever. Sunghoon knew the score here. He rolled his eyes.
“Nice to see you too, Jay.”
He set his things down and walked past Jay. As he made his way to find some leftovers in the fridge, he added beneath his breath, “Welcome to our apartment, Jay. Please, go ahead, make yourself at home, Jay.”
He heard Jay following him.
He contemplated making things less awkward by just taking his leftovers straight to his room to eat cold. But Sunghoon was exhausted and tired and whatever Jay had cooked smelled so good. He was feeling bitter. He wasn’t about to sacrifice having a warm meal just to make things slightly easier on him.
Sunghoon threw some congealed noodles from the fridge onto a plate and shoved it in the microwave, set the timer for a couple minutes, and let it heat. This was it: the glamorous life of a Hollywood actor.
Sunghoon leaned back against the counter and waited, staring at his noodles rotating in the microwave with his arms crossed over his chest. He could practically feel Jay prevaricating beside him. For a span of a couple heartbeats, there was just the mechanical drone of the microwave, as Jay quietly contemplated saying something.
“Sorry,” was what he decided to start out with. Already off to a bad start. He didn’t sound apologetic in the slightest. “Jake said he’d be back around this time, I just assumed—.”
“That’s a cute apron,” Sunghoon interrupted. He’d wanted Jay to sweat a little, but he didn’t actually need to hear Jay’s milquetoast attempts at niceties.
He was staring at the microwave, but the image of Jay as he’d seen him when he’d walked in was burned into his mind.
Jay was a rockstar. Literally. He did the whole rock music thing. He dragged around his electric guitar, he wore tight pants and eyeliner, he was covered in piercings and tattoos, and he sang songs about fucking Sunghoon’s roommate. He was a rockstar and, for some godforsaken reason, he was cooking a homemade dinner for two while wearing a stupid ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron.
It was so domestic, Sunghoon thought he might be sick.
“...It is,” Jay said, not buying it. Sunghoon really couldn’t get anything past him. “Jake got it for me.”
“So cute.”
Mercifully, the microwave beeped at just that moment.
“Well, I hope your little date night’s fun,” Sunghoon said. He tried to inject it with a little sincerity this time. For Jake’s sake.
He always told Jake that he was a saint, and he meant it. Really, Jake was too good for them. The both of them.
“Yeah. You have a fun time with those noodles,” Jay said. Alone, he seemed to add with just his smirk.
Sunghoon smiled ever-so-pleasantly back at him. Both of them.
..
The walls were thin in their apartment.
Sunghoon could hear Jake come home. He could hear how thrilled and excited he was to find Jay and a homemade dinner waiting for him.
He could hear their conversation as they spoke over dinner, overlaid on top of the clinking and clattering of their dishes and silverware.
He could hear them washing the dishes together (sickeningly domestic). He could hear their footsteps as they walked past his bedroom door to get to Jake’s. He could even tell whose footsteps belonged to who: Jake, ever conscientious, attempted to quiet his footsteps. Jay, the exact opposite, stomped around like he owned the place—like he’d owned every place he’d ever stepped foot in, actually.
Sunghoon could hear soft conversation. He could hear the creak of Jake’s bed as they laid down on it.
He could picture all too vividly what was happening in Jake’s room, on just the other side of the wall that his bed’s headboard was pressed against. He tried, as he always did, using a pillow over his ears to block out the sound. The pillow never worked. He could still hear Jake’s light laughter and Jay’s smug voice.
And then, of course, Jake’s bed started creaking again. Rhythmic. Unable to block out.
Sunghoon was going to lose his fucking mind listening to Jay Park fucking his roommate only a wall away from him.
..
When he couldn’t stand it any longer, Sunghoon drew out his phone.
Sunghoon: are you awake?
He did this too often. In his defense, Jake and Jay did this too often. Sunghoon checked the time. 11:03 PM. He was probably awake. And, if he was awake and sober enough to manage it, then he’d answer Sunghoon.
Sunghoon got up. He didn’t have much to do in the way of getting ready.
He took a seat at his vanity. While Jake cried out in barely muffled ecstatic sobs just a wall away, Sunghoon adjusted the way his hair fell in his face. While Jay murmured unintelligible low reassurances and praise, Sunghoon refreshed his fragrance.
By the time he was finished, he had a text waiting for him.
Heeseung: Yeah. Come over.
..
Sunghoon suspected that he was an awful person for using Heeseung the way he was. But Heeseung knew that he was being used. Besides, Heeseung was using him too. The score was even, he figured.
They were just a couple of shitty people, using each other. He refused to feel bad about that.
..
Sunghoon met both Heeseung and Jay at the same time—if you called waking up one Saturday morning to two strange men in your living room ‘meeting’ someone.
Heeseung had been a wreck, passed out and hungover. Even after he’d awoken, he’d barely been able to string two words together.
Jay had been a bastard. Sunghoon had tentatively spoken to him, nervous out of his mind to interact with a star of Jay’s caliber. He’d offered him coffee, freshly brewed. Jay had taken one look at him, taken one look at the coffee, and gone,
“Fucking hell, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”
Then he’d turned around and sat himself in front of Heeseung’s still-prone form, with a brooding glower on his face like Sunghoon had personally offended him.
In retrospect, that was probably the beginning of the end.
You’d have to forgive Sunghoon for the drama. It was his profession, after all.
The thing was—he knew what he looked like.
He knew he was attractive, even among all the other aspiring actors in L.A. When he walked into the audition room, the other actors cringed because they knew getting the part just got that much harder. When he smiled, people swooned. When he intimated that he wanted something, people fell over themselves to get it for him.
He wasn’t being cocky, he was just being realistic. He knew the kind of effect he had on people. Normally.
But Jay seemed immune to Sunghoon from the moment he’d met him. Add that to the fact that he was Jay Park— rock superstar, international sex symbol, a genuine, bonafide A-lister—Sunghoon had been doomed from the start.
..
Heeseung lived in a motel.
It was a charming little thing. It was situated right off the highway, inundated with the sound of cars rushing by. The parking lot, whenever Sunghoon wasn’t the only one in it, always had some shady deal of some sort going on. Really, it was the perfect location for a hookup between two people who couldn’t stand one another.
“Jay came over again?” Heeseung asked, first thing, right after he’d opened the door to his motel room. Like every other motel room Heeseung had ever resided in, this one always smelled a bit like mildew and stale cigarette smoke.
No ‘Good evening’. No ‘How have you been lately?’. Not even a ‘Hello’.
Sunghoon rolled his eyes and walked past him into the room. Cigarette smoke—fresh, this time, not stale. He spotted a still-smoldering cigarette butt in an ashtray on the nightstand beside Heeseung’s bed and curled his lip.
“What do you think?”
Sunghoon was already taking his clothes off. He started with his scarf. It was a brisk night, as far as Los Angeles nights went. His coat was next. He draped them over the spindly little chair in the corner. He wondered just how many untoward things that chair had seen over its lifetime situated in that damp, stained corner of this damp, stained motel room.
Heeseung closed the door, with a snort. He didn’t have quite as many layers to discard. He wore a band tee (it didn’t belong to his and Jay’s band. It was some other group—one Sunghoon didn’t recognize). So he just walked past Sunghoon and fell onto the bed. It creaked. Against his will, Sunghoon was reminded of why he’d left his apartment to begin with.
“You’re such an asshole,” Heeseung said, and he sounded delighted to say it. “Imagine how Jake would feel if he knew his best friend was in love with his boyfriend.”
Sunghoon’s stomach wrenched painfully.
That was the problem, wasn’t it?
Jake was a saint. If he even got a hint of Sunghoon’s feelings, he’d twist himself up into knots trying to figure out how to make Sunghoon feel better.
By escaping like this at every chance, by acting like he hated Jay, Sunghoon hoped to save Jake from that futile endeavor.
“I’m not in love with Jay. I want to fuck him. They’re two wildly different things,” Sunghoon said. He slipped off his shirt, catching how Heeseung tracked every movement, every inch of revealed skin. “You wouldn’t call this love, would you?”
He kicked off his pants. In just his briefs, he joined Heeseung on the bed.
“I don’t know. I love fucking you. Does that count?” Heeseung was grinning. He couldn’t take his eyes off Sunghoon.
Sunghoon wasn’t even trying to be particularly seductive, but Heeseung’s gaze trawled over him at an achingly slow pace, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was allowed to see this sight. He was a little too attracted to Sunghoon. Then again, who wasn’t?
“Obviously not,” Sunghoon said, as a shiver traced down his spine. It was cold in Heeseung’s motel room.
He laid up against the pillows (thin, and threadbare) and waited wordlessly for Heeseung to come to him.
Heeseung came to him.
He didn’t waste any time. He hooked his finger into the waistband of Sunghoon’s briefs and ripped them down. And then he was leaning over, reaching into the nightstand with the still-smoking cigarette on top and knocking aside the requisite motel copy of the Bible in the drawer to fish out a little bottle of lube and a condom.
“You’re no better than me,” Sunghoon managed, his voice affected by the cold air creeping over every inch of his bare, goosebumped skin. At the end of the day, they were both here for the same reason; a mutual understanding.
“Oh, I think I am.” Heeseung leaned over Sunghoon. He smelled of cigarette ash and the starchy scent of bar soap. At least he didn’t smell of liquor this time around, Sunghoon reflected.
He frowned as he contemplated Heeseung’s claim.
“You don’t agree with that?” Heeseung grinned.
With two fingers—already slicked up with lube, wet and ready—he trailed a path up Sunghoon’s inner thigh, coaxing his legs apart. Sunghoon’s breath caught. His fingers were cold. Everything about this was so cold.
“Maybe,” Sunghoon shivered, “I don’t know.”
Heeseung’s grin flickered. He drew his fingers away from Sunghoon’s skin. That was it, the entire extent of their foreplay, done.
“Turn around, Sunghoon. You won’t even have to close your eyes to pretend it’s him fucking you instead.”
Christ. Sunghoon couldn’t stand Heeseung.
He wished he wouldn’t put it so plainly like that. He wished he wouldn’t point out what Sunghoon was most ashamed of, like it was nothing more than a funny joke.
Sunghoon got onto his hands and knees anyway—not because Heeseung was right. Sunghoon would still have to close his eyes. Just a glimpse of the cracked, mustard-yellow wallpaper would break immersion. There was no way in hell that Jay would ever fuck anyone in a motel room, not even Sunghoon.
He rolled over so neither of them would be tempted to get caught up in anything as useless as kissing.
That’s not what either of them were here for. They both knew the score.
..
Sunghoon stepped out of the motel bathroom feeling relatively clean. He’d still have to wash again at the apartment, but it was enough to get him home.
Heeseung hadn’t bothered to so much as move from the spot where Sunghoon had left him on the bed, but he’d managed to light another cigarette. The thin motel sheets, haphazardly drawn up over his lap, were all that protected him from the too-cold air. His wrist was perched on his knee, a thin stream of smoke issuing out from the cigarette perched between his fingers.
He wasn’t an unattractive man, Sunghoon thought, idly.
That much was obvious. Sunghoon wouldn’t be sleeping with him if he wasn’t attractive.
Heeseung was classically handsome, the sort you could rinse off and stuff in a polo shirt and take home to charm the pants off your parents. At least, Sunghoon imagined one could do that sort of thing, if one still spoke to their parents.
Heeseung’s personality could have used some work, though.
He eyed Sunghoon as Sunghoon dressed before him. There was a wry twist to his lip. He always had some sort of smile on his face, but they almost never struck Sunghoon as particularly real.
Even before he’d become an actor, Sunghoon had been interested in the little details that comprised people’s expressions, and the vagaries and gray areas that exposed the emotions people so desperately tried to conceal.
When it came to Heeseung and his ever-present grin, there was always something off. Either it was a touch too wide, it lingered a moment too long, or his eyes were just a little too dull, not matching the brightness below them.
“Leaving already?” Heeseung asked. Bright grin, dull gaze. “What if they’re still going at it when you get back?”
Sunghoon paused, his fingers poised over his coat lapels.
“I’m sure I’ll manage,” he said, disdainful. He didn’t want to talk about this with Heeseung. He didn’t want to talk with Heeseung, not if he could help it.
Heeseung took another drag of his cigarette.
“You know,” he said, “I wasted too much time and ink angry that the things I loved didn’t love me back. It’s not that I don’t like these little meetups of ours—but you really need to get over Jay. He’s so far gone for your roommate, it’s not even funny.”
Sunghoon breathed through his mouth. The scent of burning nicotine and bitter chemicals permeated the air.
He knew that. Did Heeseung think he didn’t know that?
This was why he preferred it when they were fucking, wordless, no worthless bits of wisdom exchanged between them.
“I don’t love him,” he said, because it was true, because it needed to be said, “And I don’t take life advice from burnouts with barely more than a pack of cigarettes to their name.”
Heeseung scoffed, and smoke flooded out, obscuring his features. When it cleared, he was smiling.
“Sure. See you around, Sunghoon. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.”
..
Sunghoon came home and tried not to hear or notice a thing. He put in his headphones and turned them up high as he went through his nightly skincare routine.
Methodically, at 1:47 in the morning, with his limbs sore and his stomach in knots, he went through each step. Cleanser, second cleanser, toner, essence, serum, ampoule, moisturizer, and an occlusive to seal it all. The routine itself was therapeutic, even if every time he met his own gaze in the mirror he felt like flinching.
When he finished, he walked out of the bathroom and nearly ran straight into Jay.
His heart leapt in his chest. Shock, just an automatic reaction to the shock of encountering another person in the stillness of this late hour of night.
Jay was so close, Sunghoon could smell his cologne. Memo Paris’s Lalibela. A rose-forward scent that came at a hefty price tag of upwards of three hundred dollars a bottle. It was excessive, exorbitant, and exactly the sort of thing Sunghoon could see himself indulging in the moment he had money to spare for it.
Sunghoon slipped his headphones from his ears.
“Jay,” he said, his heart still beating far too fast.
“Sunghoon,” Jay returned. He was frowning at him. Probably annoyed that he’d taken so long in the apartment’s sole bathroom.
With Jay’s silver piercings, his knife’s edge cheekbones and jawline, his flinty gaze, even the thorny rose stems that were inked underneath his collarbones, he radiated danger. Touch him, and you’d find a nick in your finger for your troubles.
It was a good thing Sunghoon planned on staying as far away from him as possible.
Sunghoon trapped an exhale behind his lips. He nodded at him, ready to end this interaction while he was still ahead. He could feel Jay’s gaze on him—a prickling feeling. His attention, no matter how it was earned, left Sunghoon with a strange, mixed feeling of pride and shame.
“Marlboro Reds?” Jay asked, just as Sunghoon made to move past him.
It took him a moment to realize that Jay could smell Heeseung’s cigarettes on him. Moreover, he’d recognized the brand and the type. Sunghoon wondered if he’d make the connection. It was a common enough brand. Probably not.
Sunghoon kept his face carefully blank. Devoid of emotion beyond a slight pleasant smile, the sort of smile you’d treat distant relatives and shop workers to.
“Is it a regular habit of yours to go around smelling unsuspecting people?” he asked, “That’s a bit weird, Jay.”
Jay blinked at him, but his momentary surprise quickly shifted back to annoyance.
“What? It’s not like I was trying to—” Jay started, in a low growl.
Sunghoon walked away before he’d finished the sentence. Escaped, with his heart in his throat. The scent of Jay’s cologne seemed to follow him, even all the way back to his bedroom, lush rose and smoky incense lingering in his nose as he tugged up his bedsheets.
..
“Bacon?” Jake asked, when Sunghoon walked into the kitchen the morning after.
Sunghoon looked at the kitchen table, at the picked-over feast of bacon, pancakes, eggs, and orange juice.
“Jay made extra?” he asked, not quite believing it.
“Ah, I should have asked him to… No. It’s just leftovers. I wasn’t that hungry this morning.” Jake was smiling. This was a real smile—genuinely pleasant, heartwarming to look at. It reached his eyes. It was hard to fake that sort of thing. Sunghoon knew too well.
Suddenly, Sunghoon didn’t have much of an appetite.
“Oh, go ahead,” Jake insisted, lifting up a plate, “Grab some juice too, while you’re at it. Jay told me how late you came in last night. You need the energy.”
Sunghoon wished, sometimes, that Jake was less kind to him. Even small gestures like these felt undeserved.
Still, he grinned outwardly and reached forward.
“You know what? I think I will. I’m famished.”
..
Sunghoon liked to think that he could have been kind, maybe, if he’d been dealt a slightly different lot in life.
Maybe if he’d had parents who could have supported him throughout school like Jake’s—who could have paid for his tuition and rent, leaving him free to study and rack up high grades and internships, setting him up for success—maybe things could have turned out differently.
Jake always reassured Sunghoon that he’d make it, that it was only a matter of time. But Sunghoon wasn’t like Jake. He didn’t have a choice. He didn’t have parents up in Santa Clarita who’d welcome him back with open arms if rental payments fell through. He didn’t have a millionaire boyfriend. He had to make it, or he’d slip through the cracks.
Sunghoon thought that, maybe, he could have been a better person if he’d grown up like Jake. But most of the time he saw that for what it was: a useless hypothetical. He didn’t grow up supported. He didn’t grow up kind.
All he had was his face and a desperate desire to make it, no matter the cost.