50. Welcome Home
WELCOME HOME
SANG-HOON — SEOUL
With the tour officially over, we were all released to go home. Jin took me back to his apartment, the place where he lived when he wasn’t being Jin the idol.
It was modest, comfortable, filled with evidence of a life I’d only seen pieces of. Photos with family, Pryzm albums on shelves, a small studio setup where he practiced vocals.
“Welcome home,” he said, as we walked in.
“This isn’t my home.”
“It could be. If you wanted.” He sat beside me. “Move in with me. Officially. No more hiding, no more pretending we’re just colleagues.”
“Jin—”
“Joon-hi,” he corrected. “When it’s just us, I’m Joon-hi.”
“Joon-hi.” I tested the name. “Are you sure? The company approved us being together, but living together is another step.”
“I don’t care what the company thinks anymore. I care what you think.” He took my hand. “I almost lost you. Twice. And I’m done wasting time being scared of what might happen. I want to wake up with you, go to sleep with you, build a life with you. If you want that too.”
I looked around the apartment—at the space that could be ours, at the life we could build if we were brave enough to try.
“Yeah,” I said. “I want that too.”
His smile could have lit the entire city.
My phone buzzed with a notification from Instagram. My personal account, which I barely used, had gained three hundred thousand followers in the past three days.
And there were thousands of messages, almost all of them positive.
I showed Jin. He laughed. “Welcome to being famous. It’s terrible and invasive and you’ll hate it.”
“Looking forward to it.”
“Liar.”
We sat in comfortable silence, watching Seoul’s lights through the window. Somewhere in the city, Sara Yoon was in a cell waiting for trial. Grace Han was cooperating with prosecutors. The tour was over, the threat was neutralized, and we were finally, impossibly, safe.
I took Jin’s hand in mine. “I have felt close to you ever since that first time you spilled the water bottle.”
“Much spillage since then!” he said with a laugh.
“How do you feel about—more closeness?” I asked hesitantly.
He looked at me for a moment, and then he understood. “Do you want to fuck me?” he asked.
“Or you can fuck me,” I said. “I want to know what it would feel like, either way. A good stylist is always prepared. There was a sex shop in Amsterdam near the hotel and I ducked in there for a few minutes.”
“Really? What did you buy?”
“I should be naked for this,” I said, and I stood and stripped off my shirt. I had seen Jin naked many times, from his muscular chest to his beefy penis to his corded legs. I felt slim and awkward next to him but I had to get over it.
I kicked off my shoes and socks, dropped my trousers and my boxer briefs. I spread my arms and gave a little stage bow. Jin applauded.
I turned my back to him and walked to where I had left my suitcase, deliberately teasing him with my tight, hairless ass. I wondered what it would feel like to have his penis inside me.
I rooted around in my case and pulled out a wrinkled paper bag with Dutch writing on it. I brought it over to him and sat beside him on his bed.
“This feels very erotic to have you next to me while I am fully clothed,” he said.
“Now you understand why King Gongmin surrounded himself with handsome young men.”
Jin laughed. “I knew there was a reason he was your favorite king.”
The bag held condoms, lubricant, and a long, slim dildo.
He took that from me. “You want this?” he asked.
I ducked my head and blushed. “Maybe to get started,” I said. “You are bigger than I am, and I have never had anyone back there.”
My penis was already hard as I stood again. “Let me get you ready.”
I took his hands in mine and lifted him up from the bed. Then I began undressing him, as I had so many times after shows. But this time there was something more in the air between us, as if both our bodies resonated with what we were going to do.
When he was naked, I looked at his penis, so strong and sexy. “Do we need the condoms I bought?”
“I have only ever been with you,” he said. “Are you the same?”
I nodded. I squeezed some lube on his penis and rubbed it. “Not too much or I will be finished before we get started,” he said.
I laughed and squeezed some more on the dildo, and set it on its base beside the bed. My last squeeze of the lube was into his hand. Then I climbed onto the bed on my hands and knees. “Now you prepare me,” I said.
Neither of us knew exactly what we were doing, but we knew each other. He listened to my breathing, slowing whenever I tensed and moving again when I pushed back for more.
Even so, I was worried about having him inside me. I had seen his penis when it was hard, and he was wider and longer than any dildo I had played with.
He ducked his finger into my hole, coating the edges with the lubricant. I hummed and pushed back at him.
“The dildo now?” he asked.
“Yes, please.”
He grabbed it and did the same kind of circling he had done with his finger, nosing the dildo closer and closer in. When he pushed forward lightly, I tensed. I was so worried that I would not be able to give this to him.
Eventually, he had most of the dildo inside me, pushing and rotating and opening me up. “Now, maybe,” I panted, looking over his shoulder at him.
He didn’t need more of an invitation than that. He lubed up his penis again and slowly pushed forward. I resisted for a moment or two and I worried the pain would be too much, but then I was able to open up and pushed back against him. He went farther inside me.
Then it was just a matter of rhythm, and after years of dance and movement I felt Jin let his body take over. I had watched him on stage so many times, and now I was so happy to be able to do this dance together with him.
Pleasure flooded through my body, gathering until I could barely distinguish one sensation from another.
I couldn’t help myself as I opened more and more for him and panted my approval. Then I felt my body stiffen, and realized I was ejaculating without my hand ever touching myself. Then I must have transferred that emotion to him, and he spurted into me.
He pulled out of me and flopped on the bed. Then I collapsed next to him. “That was,” I said, and I yawned.
He laughed and yawned too, and we cuddled together and let sleep overtake us.
“What do we do now?” I asked, when I woke up from my nap to find Jin up on one elbow staring down at me.
“Now? We rest. We heal.”
“There will be interviews,” he said. “So many people want to be a part of our story. It may be intrusive to you, if we have to talk about love and authenticity and how the fans’ support means everything.”
“I have watched you in interviews for years,” I said. “I can learn.”
He leaned back, his head against the pillow. “Aidan and Liam invited us to visit them in France when we want. Would you like to do that?”
“Of course,” I said. “I want to know everything about how to hold onto your man for so long.”
Jin and I both got our phones and read our notifications. “There is already a lot on the news about the lighting rig collapsing at the stadium,” he said. “We will have to stick around until everything is resolved. We’ll have some time before we start preparing for the next album.”
“You really think we can have a vacation like that?” I asked.
Jin nodded. “I’m planning for two weeks. Just us. No schedules, no cameras, no one trying to kill us. Just vineyards and good food and figuring out what normal feels like.”
“I don’t think we’re built for normal.”
“Probably not. But we can try.” He laced his fingers through mine. “After everything we’ve survived, normal sounds pretty good.”