Backroom Deal

The apartment is in Jongwoo’s name, because he’s the one with a real job. But the bond comes from Seokyoon. Luckily Jongwoo isn’t too interested in where the money came from, because Seokyoon doesn’t want to explain either his side job or that the money came from Moonjo. Especially not that the money came from Moonjo.

But maybe he should have. If Jongwoo comes home to find Seokyoon dead, Seokyoon wants him to have the context.

Moonjo is standing in their living room. He seems as out of place here as he had at Eden. Seokyoon is intently aware of the takeaway containers on the bench, the tears in the couch. There’s no space for a dining table, and there’s only one bedroom. That would be just as well, if it meant Moonjo thought he lived alone. But it doesn’t.

‘The two of you have settled in, haven’t you?’

‘What do you mean?’ Seokyoon said. ‘Like I could convince anyone to go in with me. I don’t even know anyone in Seoul.’

‘Don’t lie,’ Moonjo says. His words freeze Seokyoon up; his mouth goes dry, and he can’t bring himself to talk back. ‘I came to return Jongwoo’s book. As he left so suddenly.’

‘You should drop it at his work,’ Seokyoon says. ‘You know where it is, right?’ Seokyoon has the urge to deliver Moonjo up the address and hand Jongwoo to him on a platter. If Moonjo hits him again, Seokyoon thinks, he’ll do it.

‘It wasn’t out of my way to come here,’ Moonjo says.

‘But he’s not here.’

‘Of course not. I told you to stay away from him, didn’t I?’ Moonjo smiles, a smile that makes Seokyoon want to back away. ‘I’ll just leave it here anyway.’

Moonjo places the book on the coffee table, a simple action that somehow seems a threat. But Moonjo leaves without intimating anything more.

Maybe Seokyoon should get rid of the book. It feels like leaving a murder weapon in plain view, evidence screaming out Seo Moonjo was here, which is the last thing Jongwoo wants or needs. Seokyoon picks up the book and he thinks about it. He could take it and leave it on the bench at some bus stop and Jongwoo would never know.

But then Seokyoon’s finger catches on the photo slipped between the pages – Jongwoo and a pretty girl, who must be the Jieun Seokyoon has yet to meet. Jongwoo is pulling a cute face and he looks happy. Seokyoon is used to his intensity, his high-strung anxiety about Moonjo and his coworkers. But he’s not used to Jongwoo looking like he’s having fun. It gives him a pang in his chest – jealousy, or regret maybe.

Jieun looks happy too.

Seokyoon slips the photo back between the pages of the book, and can’t bring himself to get rid of it.

---

Jongwoo doesn’t notice the book at first, when he gets in. He’s been drinking with his workmates again, grizzling because he’s sure his hyung the CEO is engineering to keep him too busy to see Jieun. Seokyoon should say by the way I ran into that guy today and make up a story that is more acceptable than the truth. Only Jongwoo sees it first.

‘Isn’t that mine?’ he says. He sits down on the couch next to Seokyoon, and pulls the book across the table.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘But I lent that …’ He holds the book in one hand, and he peers around the apartment with suspicion – then at Seokyoon. ‘He was here.’

‘I swear,’ Seokyoon says, ‘I don’t know how he knew we were here.’

‘You let him in?’ Jongwoo looks honestly betrayed.

‘He just showed up on the doorstep!’ Seokyoon says. ‘I didn’t know what to do. You weren’t here.’

‘You let him in our house.’

‘I didn’t let him, he just came.’

‘How did he even know?’ Jongwoo says. ‘Has he still been following me? Still?’ He’s asking the air, not Seokyoon. Seokyoon resists the urge to suggest that maybe he’d been following Seokyoon instead. He knows that’s not true, however much Moonjo paid him to suck his cock and get smacked around.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Well … this is stalking, right?’

‘Maybe he just wanted to return the book.’

‘Don’t defend him,’ Jongwoo says, pointing the book at Seokyoon. ‘It’s stalking. The police have got to do something, right?’

‘They’ll say the same thing,’ Seokyoon says. ‘Maybe he just wanted to return the book. Come on, hyung, you know no-one takes stalking seriously as a crime.’

Jongwoo wants to argue with that but he can’t. ‘You’re right. He’d have to do something more than this.’ He leans back, head tilted up so that he can stare at the ceiling.

‘What do you think he might do?’ Seokyoon says. He can’t say Moonjo is already the reason for his own broken nose. Violence shouldn’t come with that territory, but somehow it does. And Jongwoo’s fears aren’t for him anyway.

‘I don’t know,’ Jongwoo says. ‘I don’t know what’s in that creep’s head.’ He’s still staring upwards, and Seokyoon has the urge to reach out and touch him, like you might reach out to touch a statue – just to see how it felt beneath your fingers. He remembers Moonjo saying, maybe he’d join in.

‘Maybe he won’t do anything,’ Seokyoon says. ‘It’s you that he wants to see do something, right?’

‘What?’ Jongwoo lifts his head sharply. Seokyoon wonders if he shouldn’t have said that. Like suggesting he understands something about Moonjo makes him suspect. But Jongwoo has to understand this himself, doesn’t he?

‘Maybe it’s weird,’ Seokyoon says – it’s definitely weird – ‘but I’m kind of jealous, hyung.’

‘You want a psycho trying to get in your head?’

Seokyoon laughs too hard. ‘No no no,’ he says. ‘I just mean –’ he wishes someone would give him that kind of attention – ‘forget it. I shouldn’t have said it. It’s stupid.’

‘There’s nothing to be jealous of.’

Yeah right. Seokyoon has a broken nose, and Jongwoo doesn’t.

He wonders under what circumstances Moonjo would hit Jongwoo like that. If he would hit Jongwoo like that.

Would Seokyoon want to see?

He can’t think about that right now. Not with Jongwoo sitting next to him.

‘If he comes round again,’ Jongwoo says, ‘you should tell him where to get off.’

‘Come on, hyung.’

Jongwoo sighs, and he scrubs his face with his hands. ‘Or invite him in. Have a house party for all I care. Just let me know so I know not to be here.’

‘It’s not gonna happen.’ As if Moonjo would come round for Seokyoon. ‘Let’s just think that, okay? Just because he was here once doesn’t mean it has to mess things up.’

‘Right.’

‘So relax, okay?’ Seokyoon pats Jongwoo’s knee awkwardly, before he gets up to get himself a drink.

He already feels like he needs it.

---

Seokyoon thinks he sees Moonjo while he’s busking. But he can’t be sure – the man has stopped at a distance, like he wants to judge the performance to see if it’s worth coming closer. His stare as direct as an owl’s. And Seokyoon is definitely the mouse in this metaphor.

But it’s only a moment and the figure is gone. Like Seokyoon wasn’t worth watching after all.

---

That evening Seokyoon isn’t expecting Jongwoo back – Jongwoo has finally got one of his treasured dates with Jieun – which Seokyoon takes advantage of by watching porn in the living room. The stuff he usually watches is pretty tame, and he fights the urge to search for something harder. It’s not like he can’t call it up in his own mind anyway.

Jongwoo, slapping him across the face. Throwing him down to the ground. And Moonjo too, holding his wrists pinned.

The video Seokyoon has on his phone is some standard straight-guy-gets-turned thing, but the video is only background noise. Just visual stimulation.

Seokyoon has barely gotten started when the front door opens and Jongwoo walks in. Seokyoon shoves his phone down and grabs for the nearest cushion, but it’s too late. Jongwoo has already seen what he was doing.

‘Hyung!’ Seokyoon says. ‘You’re early. I thought you were going to be out late …’ It occurs to him, as he speaks, that Jongwoo has been crying. That’s more mortifying than just being caught jerking off.

‘Don’t mind me,’ Jongwoo says, as if Seokyoon’s embarrassment is the last thing on this mind. ‘I just got dumped.’ Seokyoon watches as Jongwoo dumps his shopping bag on the kitchen bench; Seokyoon can hear the clank of bottles.

‘Shit, hyung. I’m sorry.’ Seokyoon feels guilty – as if his own fantasies about Jongwoo have anything to do with his getting dumped. Or maybe they do. Would Seokyoon like Jongwoo so much, if he were the smiling boy in that photo Seokyoon saw? Would they have anything to do with each other, if Jongwoo had been happy?

Jongwoo comes back into the lounge with a bottle of soju and two glasses, and Seokyoon starts – ‘Hang on a minute –’ but Jongwoo sits down on the couch beside him with no regard for the fact Seokyoon still has his cock out beneath the cushion he’s holding.

Jongwoo pours the drinks and Seokyoon’s mind is stuck on hang on a minute until Jongwoo says, quite unaffectedly, ‘What were you watching?’

‘Oh, you know. Porn. Just ordinary porn.’ Seokyoon doesn’t know how Jongwoo would react if he said gay porn; he’s not quite ready to have that conversation. Especially not in this situation. ‘Is this actually a thing we’re doing right now?’

‘It’s not like I’ve got anywhere else to be,’ Jongwoo says, his voice bleak. And Seokyoon is reminded that this wouldn’t be Jongwoo’s first choice – even if this flat is better than Eden, it wouldn’t be Jongwoo’s first choice, and nor would is spending the evening with Seokyoon.

Jongwoo pushes Seokyoon’s cup closer to him. Seokyoon downs the whole thing, because if he’s meant to survive this, he’s going to need it.

Jongwoo refills their glasses.

Seokyoon can barely look at Jongwoo right now, but he has to state the proposition explicitly. ‘You’re saying we should watch porn together.’

Jongwoo swirls his glass before he takes a sip. ‘Why not?’ he says. He leans back into the couch. He’s not exactly a picture of enthusiasm. Still, just sitting by him, Seokyoon’s erection hasn’t exactly gone down.

He picks up his phone. ‘I don’t think you’d like this stuff,’ he mutters, without unlocking it; Jongwoo turns his head.

‘Why not? Is it messed up?’

Seokyoon thinks Jongwoo is intending to tease him, but he’s so intense that it’s hard to be certain.

‘It’s not messed up,’ Seokyoon says, and it’s even true – never mind what Seokyoon might have been thinking in the privacy of his own mind. ‘Look, if you wanna do this, you choose. It’s probably easier if we use your laptop anyway.’

And that way, Jongwoo doesn’t have to see the evidence that his flatmate is gay gay gay. Although that would still be better than gay and messed up, because your stalker paid me not just to face fuck me but to get out of his way and now he knows where I live and I fucked things up by asking you to live with me so now he’s probably going to kill me but I don’t know if he has something else in mind first.

Seokyoon isn’t going to say all that.

Jongwoo goes to get his laptop, and places it on the table in front of them. As he begins to browse for videos, Seokyoon finds himself babbling.

‘Hyung, forget it, let’s watch a movie or something.’ Never mind how hard he is; he can endure it and maybe afterwards he’ll feel like he can deal with things normally again.

Except that Jongwoo doesn’t take the out. He clicks on a video.

This is really happening.

Jongwoo isn’t much of a talker, which is good. Bad enough watching heterosexual porn with your guy friend who you fancy without being expected to make small talk while you’re at it. And, honestly, it doesn’t matter what’s on the screen. Because what Seokyoon is aware of is the exact distance between him and Jongwoo. Of the way Jongwoo shifts in his seat. Seokyoon isn’t looking but he is hyperattuned to Jongwoo’s presence in his peripheral vision. When Jongwoo moves his hand to squeeze his dick through his trousers, it’s impossible for Seokyoon not to notice. He can’t help but let his eyes flick over.

And then Jongwoo pulls his dick out.

This is killing him.

Seokyoon gives up on his sense of shame and he puts the cushion aside so he can stroke his own cock. Now, he thinks, Jongwoo is the one glancing at him. And it’s probably not any magnetism of Seokyoon’s, not like Jongwoo is magnetic to him. But still. It doesn’t feel like just jerking off when Seokyoon doing it with Jongwoo beside him.

Jongwoo is the one to escalate it, reaching over to jerk Seokyoon off himself.

And Seokyoon is well and truly fucked. If Moonjo knew, he would be well and truly fucked, and not in the fun way. Not in the way that anyone survives.

Right now, Seokyoon doesn’t care. Right now, he has an excuse to touch Jongwoo, even if it is the ostensibly deniable activity of giving your friend a hand, like the fact there’s a girl on screen makes it not gay; like the fact Jongwoo would never do this normally makes it not gay.

As if Seokyoon wouldn’t let Jongwoo do whatever he wanted to him. The way he had let Moonjo do whatever he wanted to him. But if it was Jongwoo, Seokyoon wouldn’t even mind being hurt.

Seokyoon is surprised when Jongwoo comes first. The words spill out his mouth before he can stop them: ‘Guess you were pent up, huh?’ As if Jongwoo needs to be reminded that he’s hardly been able to see his girlfriend since he moved to Seoul and oh look, wow, he’s a loser singleton again. Jongwoo doesn’t say anything but he tightens his grip, like he’s decided to make Seokyoon come the quicker in revenge.

And it’s not like Seokyoon can really hold out that long anyway, or even wants to. He wants to come by Jongwoo’s hand.

And he does.

Jongwoo wipes his hand on his jumper, and then he tucks himself away, before leaning forward to pour another drink.

‘Hyung, you –’ You’re really not okay, are you? is what Seokyoon thinks he’s going to say.

But, ‘Let’s not talk about it,’ Jongwoo says. He downs his drinks, goes off to the bathroom to clean up and have a shower. He leaves Seokyoon alone.

Seokyoon probably ought to clean the come off his jumper, but it seems wrong to do that in the kitchen sink. So he waits, listening to the sound of running water, wishing he had the guts to go in there and join Jongwoo in the shower. Like they were actually lovers. Like Jongwoo wouldn’t be disgusted. Or Seokyoon wouldn’t feel like a creep for going after someone who had just been dumped, and who didn’t actually want Seokyoon in the first place. Just wanted a warm body, a sympathetic ear.

He's not really even grateful to Seokyoon for getting him out of Eden. Not really. Or not since Moonjo had shown up, anyway.

How long, Seokyoon wonders, until Moonjo shows up again?

---

Jongwoo goes to bed first, pretending he’s sleep when Seokyoon turns in. He gets up before Seokyoon too, although that’s down to his having a proper job; Seokyoon shouldn’t think of it as an avoidance tactic.

Seokyoon heads out to busk over the lunch hour; later he heads out to make his real money, but the whole time he’s getting fucked he’s thinking and Jongwoo. And maybe he’s practicing some avoidance himself, because he eats alone outside a convenience store and heads home late.

As he’s coming up the street toward their apartment building, Seokyoon sees the two of them ahead of him: Jongwoo and Moonjo – Jongwoo with that hunched look he gets around Moonjo.

The pair of them stop outside the entrance, and Jongwoo turns to face Moonjo. Seokyoon should interrupt them – Jongwoo would probably be glad for the backup – but instead he ducks back out of sight.

His heartbeat is loud in his ears. Is he afraid of Moonjo now? That Moonjo will look at them and know? That he’s going to punish Seokyoon for it?

When Seokyoon gets the guts to turn back around the corner again, Moonjo is right there.

Seokyoon lets out a yelp – then he tries to laugh and say, ‘You gave me a fright,’ because he can’t let Moonjo know that he’s actually terrified.

‘Really?’ Moonjo says. ‘You should take more notice of your surroundings.’

‘I know, right?’ Seokyoon says. He doesn’t know why he’s pretending that this is some coincidence. ‘I, uh, gave that book back to Jongwoo. So he got it.’

‘You didn’t try reading it yourself?’

‘I’m sure if it’s something the two of you like, it wouldn’t make much sense to me.’

Moonjo’s lips purse thoughtfully. ‘I think you might be selling yourself short.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You have some guts,’ Moonjo says, ‘or you wouldn’t have asked Jongwoo to move with you.’

‘Ah … I wasn’t thinking guts was the necessary part.’

Moonjo smiles, and he lifts his hand – Seokyoon flinches. Moonjo’s smile only grows wider, and he raps his fist against Seokyoon’s skull.

‘Not completely empty,’ he murmurs, and Seokyoon flushes. He’s lost the train of this conversation.

‘We should get a drink soon,’ Moonjo says. ‘The three of us.’

‘I don’t think Jongwoo would go for that.’

Moonjo smiles. ‘We’ll see,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you again soon.’

Seokyoon bows his goodbye, and Moonjo passes him to go. Seokyoon’s chest still feels tight; he feels like he’s been granted a reprieve that could be taken back any moment. When Moonjo’s steps recede, Seokyoon hurries back to the apartment.

Jongwoo is in the kitchen, pouring what seems like isn’t his first cup of soju.

‘You already started,’ Seokyoon says. ‘You shouldn’t drink alone, hyung.’

Jongwoo drinks his cup, but then he grabs another glass and pours for Seokyoon too.

‘Did you eat?’ Seokyoon asks. Jongwoo grunts in affirmation. ‘I, uh … I passed Seo Moonjo on the way in.’ He’s not sure if it’s sensible to bring him up – but if he can keep Jongwoo’s mind on that, maybe he can distract from the post-handjob awkwardness.

‘Did he say anything to you?’ Jongwoo asks. His eyes latching on to Seokyoon as if he’s actually interested.

‘Just that we should all get a drink sometime,’ Seokyoon says, and laughs, ha ha, so that Jongwoo knows he knows it’s inconceivable.

‘He’s crazy,’ Jongwoo says. ‘It’s like he thinks we’re friends. Or …’ Jongwoo shakes his head.

‘It’s better like this though, right?’

‘Better?’

‘Yeah. I mean, he’s gone home now. Maybe he’s still a stalker, but …’

‘You’re right,’ Jongwoo says. His brow knits, like he wants to argue the point. ‘No, you’re right.’ He goes to sit down on the couch now; Seokyoon, remembering last night, isn’t sure whether to join him.

‘Even if Jieun …’ Jongwoo presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose; Seokyoon has the urge to sit beside him and rub his back. Instead he sits by the wall on the other side of the coffee table, that and the bottle of soju between them.

‘Maybe she’ll change her mind,’ Seokyoon says.

Jongwoo shakes his head. Seokyoon can’t help the little flare of hope that lights inside of him; he doesn’t want Jongwoo to reconcile with Jieun. But he wants to act like a supportive friend. Can he really be a supportive friend, when all he wants is Jongwoo to put his hands on him again?

‘I wonder why she even kept dating me,’ Jongwoo says. ‘We didn’t have to bother with the long-distance thing, if this was how it was going to end up.’

‘It’s rough.’

Jongwoo sighs. He turns around on the couch, so that he can lie with his back against the cushions, staring up at the ceiling. ‘I didn’t say anything at work because I knew how Jaeho would be.’

‘Your boss?’

‘He’d say, plenty more fish in the sea, but he’d have that look in his eyes. He’s gonna find out sooner or later.’

‘Does it matter? If Jieun rejected you, she’s not going to go out with him now.’

It took a moment, but then Jongwoo made a noise like laughter.

‘I mean, I don’t know the guy,’ Seokyoon says. ‘But I’m pretty sure.’ He might only have the image of Jieun that Jongwoo has built up in his mind, but maybe because Seokyoon likes Jongwoo, he wants to think kindly of the woman who had liked him too. Wants to credit her with some sensitivity, even if she had broken it off in the end. He can’t be too mad at her for that, can he?

‘I hope you’re right,’ Jongwoo says. He’s distracted from Moonjo now, but Seokyoon wonders what passed between them. He’d thought Moonjo might have said something about Seokyoon to him – something to drive a wedge between them – but if he had, Jongwoo couldn’t have been so relaxed.

Whatever Jongwoo was wound up about, as long as he could relax around Seokyoon, and complain to him, things couldn’t be so bad.