Episode 15 #4
Jun and Damian didn’t sit together at the meal.
The Residency and 5N broke up and spread around the room.
Each of them made a point to stand up at points and work the room.
After the third toast in a row was pressured on him, Damian escaped briefly to a seat beside Richard.
“We should have brought Cedric to drink for us.”
Richard chuckled. “They’re working all of you hard, but you and Jun most.”
“We’re going to have to just send the boys out.” Damian rubbed his head. “I think they want to see what Jun and I are like together when we’re drunk.”
Richard smiled, watching the room, nodding along to the music. “Keep them guessing.”
“We will.”
Jun stood up at the microphone at the front of the room. Damian checked his watch. It was that time already. Their plan was moving forward.
Jun politely cleared his throat and raised his glass in a toast. Then he held up tickets.
“We have a limited amount of reserved tickets for the after party tomorrow. Please see one of us, Su-jin, Geun, Jaewoong, Yohei, or myself if you’d like to have one.
Remember, the after party is part fundraiser.
Everyone who comes will have the opportunity to have any one of us sing whatever you want, karaoke style, for a price.
All proceeds will go to the charity on the ticket you purchase.
We have three charities we’re supporting, a children’s fund, disaster relief, and an art installation, right here in Seoul.
Please, go easy on us. We will be exhausted.
” Jun bowed, hands together, to the audience, who laughed.
The other four 5N members mimicked Jun from wherever they were in the room.
Damian forced himself not to hold his breath and to go on smiling and clapping. He turned to the business woman standing next him and said, “Who would you ask to sing and what?”
She raised her eyebrows, then laughed and blushed, shaking her head. Her cheeks were already flushed with alcohol.
“No, really,” Damian cajoled.
She giggled and leaned towards him, speaking behind her hand. “Yohei. And for a song…too sexy…”
Damian frowned. “I don’t know that song.”
“It’s English, and old. The one where they’re too sexy for their…” Her voice trailed upwards and she tugged on her blouse. “I don’t know the title.”
Damian laughed. “That’s old!”
She faked slapping him and went on blushing.
He shook his head as if he were disappointed in her.
“Don’t judge,” she said. “You’re dating Gang Junseo.”
Damian grinned, showing teeth. “Touché.”
He palmed one of the tickets he was carrying and made his way through the room, offering them to his short list. A list he’d just mentally adjusted.
They had eyes on so many of the Merchari in preparation for their plan, but the one who’d spoken to Jun at the comeback party, the one passing under the name Neumann, wasn’t nailed down for the next day.
He found Neumann talking in a circle with several businessmen, including two marked Merchari allies and clients.
Damian settled into their circle, calling out the two Merchari clients by name, as they’d met before.
They were already on the after party list, known party animals that had been easy to sweep up in émeric’s social engineering.
“So I’ll see all of you tomorrow,” Damian said?.
“Not Neumann,” one of the clients said.
“Oh, well, since you’re all friends. Just make sure you buy a song for the children’s fund.” Damian pulled a ticket out and passed it to Neumann. “That’s my last one, don’t waste it.” He grinned, letting a slight drunkenness seep into his voice.
There was general back slapping all around and promises to drag Neumann with if he forgot. Damian slipped away, ready to be done. It was still another thirty minutes before he made it to the door and another ten before Jun joined him.
Richard would see the party through to the end with Collin, supported by two of his vice-presidents in East Asia. Damian knew them. He was in good hands. For now, Jun needed to get home and get sleep. Tomorrow was about to arrive and it was going to be several days rolled into one.
Jun
Jun woke with fragments of dreams clinging to his skin, his senses half present with the white sheets under his cheek and half still imagining his hand laying against cold, dark hardwood floors with flames rising around his body as the police chief stared back at him from dead eyes.
Aftermath. Someday he was going to write a song titled Aftermath.
Maybe it would be today. It was there, under his skin.
He snuggled back, feeling Damian’s hand on his hip.
Not enough. He flipped over and pressed himself against Damian, chest to chest. Still mostly asleep, Damian settled against him.
“DaSu.”
“Hm.” Damian rubbed his head against his pillow.
“DaSu.” Jun ran his hands up and down Damian’s strong back and over his butt. Damn, but his man had a beautiful, thick ass. And thighs to match.
Jun dragged his lips over Damian’s hairline. Not enough. Need formed inside his belly, deep and aching. He dragged Damian’s hand up to his lips and licked and mouthed Damian’s palm, up his thumb and over to his fingers.
Damian rumbled in his chest, his thigh going over Jun’s and pinning him in place. “Wolfling.”
Jun rumbled back, not letting up. He made it up to Damian’s wrist and mouthed, kneading Damian’s bones and tendons with his lip-covered teeth, sucking here and there.
More. He wanted more. A push, and Damian rolled over, letting Jun climb on top of him.
There was sweat in the bend of his elbow.
Jun licked it away and sucked until Damian groaned.
Up and up, over the soft, relaxed pile of his bicep and the strong sinews leading to his shoulder. Over the collar bones.
Damian. Damian. His Damian.
A warm palm settled against Jun’s bare ass. Damian’s fingers curled inward, taking a handful of Jun’s posterior. Jun leaned into the grip, never letting up on his soft assault on Damian’s neck, climbing towards his jaw.
“Precious wolf,” Damian murmured.
Jun sucked harder, his knees gripping Damian’s sides.
Damian’s hands ran up and down his ribs, encouraging Jun to do as he would.
Jun dragged his lips over Damian’s ear, eliciting a twitch and a shudder.
He made his way over Damian’s forehead, down to his other ear, down his neck, and to his arm.
Damian let him, releasing Jun’s ass so Jun could trace an identical path.
He stopped, straddling Damian, looking down at him, Damian’s forefinger in his mouth.
Damian looked up at him from half-lidded eyes. “Hungry, wolfling?”
Hungry?
No. He was marking his territory. He was making the future real. A future where he came back to this bed that now smelled like them and lay down with his chosen person again and slept as peacefully as the scars on their souls let them.
Damian sensed the words Jun couldn’t say.
He reached up, curling his fingers around the back of Jun’s neck and pushing up from the bed, so that Jun was straddling his hips, their chests pressed together.
Music throbbed under his skin, as if he was picking up the beat of Damian’s heart and channeling it into chords, strong and driving.
He wrapped his hands behind Damian’s head and bit and sucked on Damian’s lips until Damian pinned him in place, kissing him properly, taking control.
It was there, rolling through him, everything he knew to be true between them, the wasteland of history around them, and the bastion of community upon which they had built themselves.
Tears ran down his face. He had to touch everywhere.
Damian’s head, his shoulders, his arms, his face.
There was salt on his tongue from licking his own tears off Damian’s face.
Or maybe those were Damian’s tears. Something surged between them, greater than words. Deeper than breath.
They tangled, differences lost, two parts of a living union.
“Jun,” Damian whispered.
“DaSu.”
“Forever. Tell me this is forever.”
“Can Collin’s mom do something witchy and tie our souls together?”
“We could ask.”
Jun laughed, his nose pressed against Damian’s cheek. Then Damian was laughing with him, something beautiful and overwhelming making his belly roll against Jun’s hips and stomach.
“DaSu,” Jun whispered into the quiet that followed.
“Yes.”
“If they take me, if they end me, remember, I’m not dead.”
“How?”
“Because I’ll never leave you, and you’ll always have my voice.”
“Jun,” Damian choked up, his arms more than holding Jun’s body against his. He seemed to want to fold Jun inside his ribs, to keep him forever. Jun bent to the embrace, sweat sliding down their joined skin. “Don’t tell me not to follow you.”
“No,” Jun whispered, “I won’t tell you not to follow me, but if you could, I would tell you to live.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re loved. Because I’m loved.
Because I trust you with my memory, with my music, with my friends, with Su-jin, with my sisters.
Because you hold Richard’s heart and émeric’s pride, because you make Collin breathe out and release just to see you.
Because I trust you to hunt those who deserve to be found. For better or for worse.”
“If they come, if they take you, promise me you’ll fight again. Promise me.”
Jun cupped Damian’s face in his hands, the feeling in his chest rising and choking him until he could guide it into speech. “They don’t know what’s been woken, DaSu. They don’t know what I’m capable of. I’m the wolf.”