Chapter Text
But in politics, as in other things, the heart wants what it wants. — David Litt
Life on overload / Must we make a spectacle of love? — John Legend
Here are a few things they don’t tell you about working for the White House.
First: No, the White House does not have an indoor swimming pool. There hasn’t been one since 1970, when Richard Nixon built the Press Briefing Room on top of it, to oblige the growing demand for TV news.
And yes, this disappoints most of Renjun’s Tinder matches when they ask.
He wouldn’t be allowed anywhere close, even if there was one. The Assistant to the First Son would probably be tackled by three Secret Service agents if he so much as dipped a toe in without prior authorization. But Renjun isn’t much of a swimmer, anyway.
Second: Air Force One has its perks. Even for staffers, who are free to partake in the bottomless supply of alcohol and superb in-flight VOD selection. There are worse things in life than sailing over the Atlantic, sipping prosecco and watching West Wing only semi-ironically.
It might be 11 a.m., but Renjun is a firm believer that alcohol that sparkles is an anytime-of-day type of drink. And with Renjun’s job, he deserves a drink or two.
Third: what no one tells you about Air Force One is that by some oversight of industrial design, it only has one, tiny bathroom.
Most of the time, the White House staff flies out for events at ungodly hours of the morning. So everyone turns up at the private airway dressed for comfort, the men in Adidas and the women in Lululemon, bleary-eyed and messy-haired at 4 a.m.
Except for Chenle, history’s youngest Chief of Staff, and arguably the best-dressed. He once admitted to Renjun that he sleeps in his suits the night before to be effortlessly chic for the morning.
“How do you not end up with your shirts all wrinkled?” Renjun asked him.
“Two things you should never underestimate, Renjun,” Chenle said, “are the power of Brooks Brothers, and me.”
The athleisure is fine, until it’s time to change into business-formal for whatever gala or fundraiser or other stuffy event they’re attending. So everyone starts lining up to change clothes hours before the flight lands.
And if you can’t get into the bathroom in time, you’re forced to change, woe to you, out in the open in front of the most powerful members of the United States government. Renjun speaks from personal experience. To this day he can’t look the Secretary of Homeland Security in the eye after seeing him in his tighty-whiteys.
And last but not least: Jaemin Na, son of the first Korean-American president of the United States, is an insufferable fucking asshole.
The insufferable fucking asshole in question steps out of the Air Force One bathroom, as Renjun’s fist is still raised mid-knock. Under Jaemin’s suit jacket, slate gray and metallic — so painfully stylish Renjun knows he’ll see a thousand iterations on runways soon — his collared shirt is open by a few buttons. It exposes a swath of Jaemin’s collarbones and down his broad chest. His dark hair is a little tousled from changing clothes.
Renjun pointedly focuses on Jaemin’s eyes and nowhere else. “Button your shirt up. You look like Heathcliff fell sideways through a Zara dressing room.”
Jaemin glances down at himself, wide-eyed and innocent, as if he didn’t know exactly what he was doing. “Is that not a good look to have?”
“Maybe if you’re as effortlessly hipster as Harry Styles or something. Which you aren’t.”
The corner of Jaemin’s mouth spasms in the hint of a smile before it’s gone, so fast Renjun might have imagined it. “I disagree. It fits my dashing image, don’t you think?”
“You are the chronic, unmitigatable nuisance of my life,” Renjun says. “Like indigestion.”
Jaemin crosses his arms and squares his shoulders. He’s looking down his nose at him, emphasizing every infuriating inch of height he has on Renjun. “You should mind how you speak to your superiors. Especially ones as good-looking and well-dressed as I am.”
Renjun scoffs. “Hold my stuff, will you? I have to vomit.”
He shoves his phone into Jaemin’s chest pocket and pushes past him into the bathroom, taking pains not to brush against him any more than he has to. It’s a losing battle in such a cramped space. Jaemin opens his mouth to retort, already smirking at whatever barb he’s about to throw Renjun’s way. Renjun slams the door in his face.
Tiny victories. Renjun takes them where he can get them.
He emerges some time later in his crisp black suit and silvery tie (selected by the stylist team to match Jaemin, he’s sure), the sweatsuit he was formerly wearing in hand.
The First Son is lounging by the window in the back row, having stolen Renjun’s seat from across the aisle. He’s flipping idly through an issue of a glossy tabloid. He still looks distinctly windswept, his collar disheveled, but at least he’s not sporting the Fabio look any longer. But his tie is knotted wrong, as always. Because why would he bother to exert the effort when he has Renjun to do it for him?
Jaemin thinks he’s better than Renjun, he knows it. Like Renjun is his butler and not a salaried employee of the White House.
Even if he has “assistant” in his job title.
Renjun considers the odds of strangling Jaemin with his own tie without the other staffers noticing, but rules against it. For now.
“What are they writing about you this month?”
Jaemin turns and the sunlight, almost blinding at this altitude, paints his profile in bright white, lights his brown eyes in honey and amber. He missed a small patch while shaving, right along the plane of his jaw. Renjun could trace it with one finger if he wanted to. The thought almost makes him shiver.
For a second he forgets how to use his lungs. Maybe the whole Heathcliff thing works better than he admits.
“Looks like I’m planning my vacation with my soon-to-be-fiancé, the princess of Denmark,” Jaemin says. “I forgot Denmark had a monarchy. Could you pencil in Majorca with the missus?”
“I’ll mark it on your Google calendar.” Renjun taps his chin in contemplation. “That’s better than last month. They said you were having an affair with Kate Middleton to destabilize European-American relations.”
Jaemin returns his sneer in kind. “A geopolitical sex scandal? As if I have the time.”
Renjun gestures at his mess of an outfit. “You’re all… Rumpled. Come here.”
Jaemin sighs as he stands. He pulls Renjun closer by the elbow so they leave the aisle free for staffers. Other White House personnel hustle to and fro from the President’s Suite, plastic coffee cups in hand and IDs on lanyards swinging on their necks, all while chattering into Bluetooth earphones like Renjun’s own.
The staff cabin is buzzing as they approach their destination, the noise growing as staffers stir from mid-flight naps and begin the flurry of phone calls to be made before touchdown. Air Force One is en-route to Normandy for the eightieth anniversary of D-Day. Jaemin will give remarks before introducing his mom in front of hundreds, including heads of state and government that still make Renjun quake in his pleather wing-tips.
It won’t be the biggest audience Jaemin has ever spoken to. That would have been his mother’s inauguration night, in front of almost three million Americans with over forty million tuning in. But it will be one of the most star-studded.
Renjun is not panicking over it. Not at all.
He jerks the tie too roughly, just to hear Jaemin’s small noise of indignation, and sets about tying it. “Seriously, has no one ever taught you how to tie a tie properly? Didn’t your dad—”
He freezes.
“No, actually.” Jaemin’s voice is mild.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean — I’m sorry.” Jesus Christ. He’s an insensitive dick.
“It’s fine. No offense taken.”
“Still, I should know better.”
“You’re okay. My mom taught me when I was eleven.” Jaemin touches Renjun’s wrist gently, two fingers, to assure him it really is fine. “But why should I bother when I have your talented hands to do it for me?”
Jaemin’s breath is warm against his cheek this close.
“Yeah, well. Your mom doesn’t pay me to play dress-up with fully-grown men.” Renjun grumbles in the back of his throat and presses a finger into Jaemin’s chest, where the buttons are crooked. “You missed one here. I have to start all over again.”
He gives up on the tie for now and sets to work unbuttoning Jaemin’s shirt without ceremony, ignoring the tingle when his fingertips brush against bare skin as he works his way down.
It’s not a big deal. Renjun isn’t thinking about anything at all. He doesn’t think about how Jaemin’s fingers are lingering on his wrist.
A huff of a laugh that Renjun feels on his neck more than he hears. “Your hands are shaking.”
“They are not. You keep moving.”
Then Renjun makes the gargantuan mistake of looking up at Jaemin.
Who’s gazing down at him through low, hooded eyes and thick lashes with the ghost of a smile playing across his mouth. Positively wicked.
“If you wanted to take my clothes off,” Jaemin says, low enough that only Renjun can hear, “you could have just asked.”
Renjun’s entire body from the crown of his head to his feet flushes hot with something like rage.
He shoves Jaemin away, who laughs. “What, did I strike a nerve?”
“You’re a walking workplace harassment lawsuit,” Renjun bites. His voice doesn’t shake because he doesn’t allow it to. “Button it yourself.”
Jaemin does just that, taking his sweet time to leisurely secure each button, without taking his eyes off of Renjun.
“Technically, not true. Since I’m not paid to be here. The president’s kids aren’t allowed to hold official positions.” As if Renjun doesn’t know how the presidential administration operates. “Anti-nepotism law, and all that.”
“Right. Because every president has followed that rule,” Renjun snips. “You don’t need to mansplain it to me.” He steps into his space again to smooth out Jaemin’s collar over his broad shoulders. “And I hate that that’s the part you argue with me about. Not the lawsuit part.”
“If it were a crime to flirt with staffers, I’d be in prison a thousand times over.”
“Don’t wait around on my behalf.”
“Will you write to me in my jail cell?”
“No.” Renjun smiles, all saccharine-sweetness. “But I’ll bribe the judge who put you there to throw away the key.”
Jaemin’s eyes are full of mirth but he bites his lip to hold in a laugh. “Fix my tie, now, would you? Since that’s what my mom pays you for.”
Renjun takes both ends of his tie, sliding one end down to get the perfect length. He’s developed a surfeit of skills in his time as Jaemin’s assistant, one of which is tying the perfect Windsor.
This close, he can smell the coffee Jaemin had been drinking, and his cologne, vanilla and birch and something deeper like spice. It’s not a combination that Renjun would consider his favorite. (That would be the smell of his mother’s xiao long bao steaming in the kitchen on the sunny afternoons of his youth.) But it’s a fusion of smells so inherently Jaemin, one that sparks an almost Pavlovian response in Renjun, that at this point it’s as identifiable as the smell of his childhood home.
And when one of Jaemin’s hands drifts to Renjun’s hip, right at the edge of his waistband and warm through the linen of his shirt, his stomach doesn’t do a wiggle-flip-and-barrel-roll.
Because that would mean acknowledging the tremble of his hands, too.
“Have you practiced your speech?”
Jaemin snorts a little, barely an exhale. “Do you really have to ask?”
“I do.” He doesn’t, actually. Some people are born to heal the sick or run numbers or boss around people twice their age, like Chenle. Jaemin was put on the Earth to sway even the staunchest red voters with resounding, powerhouse speeches. He was also sent from whatever personal hell dimension that was designed to annoy Renjun, specifically. But that’s neither here nor there.
The rock-star charisma translates almost too well to public speaking. It must be something in his family’s genetic pool. Being beautiful to look at doesn’t hurt, either. Also genetic.
Renjun loops the tie into a tidy knot. “Donghyuck pulled an all-nighter to write it in time. And it’s his birthday today. Do him the justice of delivering it well.”
“I’ll work hard,” Jaemin sing-songs.
Before Renjun can respond, the pilot’s voice crackles over the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are preparing for landing in fifteen minutes. As we begin our descent, please fasten all seatbelts...”
“Junie, I need you in the Presidential Suite,” Chenle says through Renjun’s Bluetooth earpiece at almost the same moment. “Bring your hellion, too.”
“Is that Chenle?” Jaemin asks, having butted in close enough to Renjun’s ear to eavesdrop. “Tell him I’m not coming unless he calls me by my codename.”
“No.”
“Then I’m not coming.”
Renjun rolls his eyes and wishes for the sweet release of death. “Chenle. Please call him... the name. He’s being difficult,” he says in Mandarin. It’s a tactic they use when they don’t want Jaemin to understand what they’re saying.
“When is he not?” Chenle responds in kind, then switches back to English. “Renjun, please bring Snowball to the president’s cabin. Before I crash this plane and take you all to hell with me.”
“There in two.” Renjun switches off his earphone. “Come on. We’ve been summoned.”
He turns on his heel and stalks his way up the aisle, feeling Jaemin’s eyes bore into his back as he follows. He hears him mumble, “Why does he get to call you Junie and not me?”
Renjun and Jaemin pass through the dining cabin, where a couple of junior-level staffers are stuffing their pockets with the complimentary breadsticks, while flight attendants try to shoo them back to their seats before descent begins.
The President’s Suite near the plane’s nose is even more packed than the staffer’s cabin they left behind. President Joohyun Bae, radiant in a vibrant red pantsuit and matching heels, spares a glance and an absent smile for her son. Then she turns back to an intense discussion with a few cabinet members.
She’s sipping from a champagne flute at the same time, though, and Renjun appreciates her style.
President Bae was not the first woman to run for office. But she was the last thing America expected to rise, meteoric, through the Democratic primaries as the feisty, firebrand, Bronx-born Speaker of the House, and solidify her spot as the first Asian-American president in U.S. history. She’s also whip-smart, terrifyingly capable, and does it all wearing killer YSL stilettos.
She’s everything Renjun has ever wanted to be and more.
When he confessed this to Jaemin, he laughed in his face and told him he’d get her to autograph a napkin for him. He didn’t. But if he had, Renjun would have laminated that napkin and treasured it to the end of his days.
Chenle’s artfully-mussed head pops over the back of a nearby seat. “You might wanna strap in for landing, boys, before the flight attendants have a coronary.”
“‘Boys,’ he calls us. Did you hear that? ‘Boys,’” Jaemin says as they slide into the seats behind Chenle and buckle their seatbelts. “Younger than us by an entire year, and yet no respect—”
“And a perfectly functioning set of ears, I might add.”
Jaemin continues at a whisper, “No formality, no civility—”
And before Renjun knows it, Air Force One is touching down to the polite applause of the cabin, and the bubble of calm bursts. Staffers launch out of their seats in a frenzy of preparation to disembark. President Bae is swept out of sight by the throng of stylists applying last minute touches to be camera-ready. The press pool swarms to snap behind-the-scenes photos of the president, shots that will end up on CNN reels and Vogue columns alike. Renjun may or may not have one of himself with POTUS that he keeps framed on his desk.
Renjun turns to Jaemin to give him a final once-over, fidgeting with his suit jacket’s lapels. “Good luck out there.”
“That’s helpful. Almost as helpful as ‘thoughts and prayers’ from a politician.”
“I’m serious.”
Jaemin smiles, all gleaming white teeth and arrogance. “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
Renjun yanks Jaemin’s collar until they’re almost nose-to-nose, a shade too aggressive for where they are, out in the open like this with dozens of staffers and the security team milling around. And Renjun can’t find it in himself to care.
“Do not embarrass me today in front of six different global superpowers, or so help me, I’ll —”
“You’ll do what?” Jaemin baits him. His eyes are so much darker than moments before.
Renjun wets his lips with the tip of his tongue, his mouth suddenly dry, and Jaemin’s eyes follow the motion. Renjun is still fisting the front of his shirt.
“Let’s just say, I hope being the son of a global superpower comes with life insurance.”
And Jaemin without breaking eye contact pulls something out of his breast pocket, nudges open Renjun’s jacket, and slides it into his.
It’s Renjun’s work phone, and his staffer ID for security clearance denoting his name and title. Jaemin doesn’t have one — has never needed one. People know his name as soon as he steps in the room. Renjun had forgotten he’d handed them over to him.
Jaemin pats a spot on his chest next to the pocket he just filled, directly over Renjun’s heart. “I do so love when you threaten my life.”
He doesn’t move his hand.
And Renjun — Renjun is a coward, his traitor heart beating a violent tattoo against his too-tight ribs. He steps away so fast he almost trips, before Jaemin can feel it pounding against his palm.
“Don’t get used to it. It’s above my pay grade to give you orders.” Renjun cocks his head, assessing. “But that’s your job, isn’t it?”
Something passes across Jaemin’s face, too fast for Renjun to decipher — surprise? Guilt? Before Renjun can parse its meaning, Chenle is pushing them both down the stairs to the door, to the front of the throng, Secret Service agents in mirrored shades reflecting Renjun’s pale face as they press in close.
Chenle’s voice is in both Renjun’s earpiece and right beside him, counting down, “And we’re live in five, four, three, two—”
A blast of hot air and the cries of the crowd greet them as the plane’s door hisses open.
The president strides through first, beaming wide with a hand thrown out in a wave before she even steps out of the plane. The crowd roars, barely contained behind barriers on the tarmac below.
Then Jaemin follows next, Renjun close at his heels. He never thinks it’s possible, and yet it always surprises him when the crowd somehow screams even louder.
As they descend the stairs, Renjun schools his expression into the cool neutrality expected of staff members. And he watches the mask of the president’s son slide over Jaemin’s face. It’s not that dramatically different from the Jaemin that Renjun sees every day behind the White House gates. Just sharper, more refined — a little too daring and sensual for boy-next-door but something very close to it.
Renjun always feels out-of-place like this: in front of so many cameras and eager, shining faces, hands outstretched. Microphones are shoved towards them in hopes of snatching the sound byte that’ll make headlines in the next vicious news cycle. The reporters’ white teeth gleam with bloodlust and superficiality.
It makes Renjun feel small and caged and he can never figure out where to put his hands.
But Jaemin basks in it, becomes something equal parts coy and forthcoming. Giving the cameras carefully-crafted PR answers that offer just enough to draw the audience into craving more. Craving him. He’s good at this, almost too good to be believed, if Renjun hadn’t seen it with his own eyes since his first days at the White House.
As a rule, Jaemin walks the line of family-friendly enough to be America’s sweetheart, and tantalizing enough to be America’s sex symbol. This is not an easy task, and Renjun hates to admit that he admires it.
Line Jaemin up among any number of men in their twenties and ask someone to pick out the celebrity, even someone who’s never heard of the president’s son. They would choose Jaemin every single time. There’s only so much media training and charisma can do. But a blessed few are born with the power to operate under the pressure and expectations of a nation, and pull it off with finesse.
And Jaemin is one of those few.
Renjun doesn’t fit into this world. Jaemin’s world. He wasn’t born for it, built for it, the way Jaemin was.
Renjun might be on the opposite side of the press barrier. But he’s just like the fans behind it, arms outstretched, desperate for even a brush with the living icon at his side, just another nameless face in the crowd.
The thing is.
The thing. Is.
What they don’t tell you about working for the White House. What they don’t meticulously outline in the grueling FBI background checks and stacks of NDAs during orientation. What your coworkers don’t warn you about in snatches of conversations stolen between meetings and press conferences and campaign stops and focus groups — so many focus groups.
What they don’t tell you is that Jaemin Na will be the bane of your existence.
Hating your boss in D.C. is a given. That’s one thing. Hating your boss, who is the same age as you and still makes you tie his ties and has stupid perfectly-tousled hair and a deeply punchable mouth, is a whole, other enormous, unwieldy Thing. It makes Renjun sweaty under his suit collar.
Especially when the president is also your employer. And her son is your boss.
To be fair, the president is everyone’s employer. Technically. Whatever.
Because Renjun is good at his job. Excellent at it, if he drops the false modesty. He’s been told by people who like him that he’s goal-oriented and ambitious, and by people who hate him that he’s an abrasive dickhead.
Renjun believes that the truth always lies somewhere in the middle.
He’s hyper-organized and can multitask like a motherfucker, and doesn’t back down when strung-out, megalomaniac politicians give him shit. Which happens often. And all of these qualities make him the ideal Assistant to the First Son.
But Jaemin, on the other hand, is a demon who lives on iced Americanos and the sustenance of Renjun’s waking stress nightmares. Like some kind of panic-feeding succubi. He can drink like a frat boy during rush week, roll out of bed the next morning on two hours of sleep, and slam a heartfelt keynote speech at 8 a.m., then do it all over again the next day.
It’s not that Jaemin isn’t excellent at his job, too. Renjun can almost admire him for it. Almost. It’s that it comes so easy to him, while Renjun is always one bad hair day and an incorrect Starbucks order from falling apart.
And Jaemin is always charming enough to talk himself out of the debacles of his own making. Somehow his escapades that land him on the front page of tabloid filth and piss off Fox News only manage to grow his loyal fanbase. If anyone could spin a romp across the Caribbean Islands (which Renjun had to personally drag him back to D.C. by the ear from), into a Vanity Fair spread about his philanthropy building low-income housing in the Dominican Republic — well, it’s Jaemin.
Which Jaemin did. The building houses thing. It wasn’t a total lie.
(Renjun may have also threatened litigation against the reporter for surveilling a First Family member. But he doesn’t kiss and tell.)
Jaemin has had a litany of “body men” — and yes, that is the unfortunate D.C. slang for political aides like Renjun, that makes him sound like a stunt double for a pro wrestler or something — that eventually quit or transferred, citing health reasons or a change of heart. In reality, he knows Jaemin chased them away screaming. He’s the only one who has stuck with Jaemin this long.
Their relationship is built on the same foundation as most boss-and-assistant relationships in the White House are: mutual anxiety, caffeine dependence, and begrudging respect — on Renjun’s end, anyway. They’re so deeply imbalanced that somehow they work, Jaemin the chaos agent and Renjun picking up the pieces in his wake.
Renjun should tell him to go fuck himself. He should leave, get an office job with a cubicle, decorate it with a succulent like a normal, regular person. He shouldn’t feel obligated to stay. To see the Bae administration to its end, whether that means the president is re-elected this fall and they get four more years or —
Or they lose.
Renjun shouldn’t feel a squeeze of panic in his gut at the thought of this ending so soon.
Renjun shouldn’t feel a lot of things.
But who would give up a chance like this? Working in the White House, for the first female Asian-American president of the United States… It’s an opportunity Renjun had grovelled for, and would do so again in a heartbeat.
He has no misconceptions about what it means to serve the Oval Office. It’s both an awe-inspiring honor to be chosen to do so, and a humbling weight of responsibility. A mantle of a country’s expectations that will crush him if he lets it.
Renjun isn’t religious but it’s the closest thing he knows to piety. If he’s not careful, he might start believing he deserves it.
His job isn’t easy, by any means. He’s often in the West Wing by six a.m. and doesn’t leave until late into the evening with only the twinges of early onset tendonitis, if he’s lucky. When he staggers home every night to his apartment in Dupont Circle that he can barely afford, he’s already falling asleep as he crosses the threshold.
He simply doesn’t have the free time to sit around and moon over what can and can’t be. He won’t become the youngest senator in U.S. history by being soft.
Renjun and Jaemin have been through so much together, more — he must admit — than he’s been through with those he actually calls friends.
And there are — incidences. Glimpses of sincerity from Jaemin in the space between seconds. So rare for Jaemin, and all the more intimate for it, even if they’re in the middle of a crowded room. Moments after Renjun makes a clever counterpoint or nails deflecting a question from a petulant reporter.
Moments when Jaemin leans in close, one hand drifting to Renjun’s shoulder, and murmurs against his ear, “You’re doing such a good job.”
And something warm and syrupy and treasonous bubbles up in Renjun.
He still huffs, because that’s what Jaemin expects him to do, and snaps, “I don’t need your praise.” But his voice is much softer than he intends it to come out. And he spends the rest of the day reminding his chest not to cave in.
It’s moments like those that might make it all worth it.
This morning, however, is not one of those moments.
The hotel door chirps and swings open on silent hinges, despite how hard Renjun yanks it. He wanted more door-slamming theatrics, shaking the fleur-de-lis-printed walls like a force of nature. Not this bourgeois five-star chateau bull-shit.
He settles on stomping his pleather wing-tips as hard as he can, as they carry him into the hotel room.
Which is in a state that Renjun can only describe as — well, not Rolling-Stones-tour-stop-level of chaos, but close. No furniture is broken as far as he can see, thank God. He’s not in the mood to break it to Chenle that they need thousands out of the budget for hotel debauchery. Renjun can only imagine the spreadsheets.
The bedside lamp is on the floor, though, inverting the shadows wrong-side-up. The fancy automated blinds hang gap-toothed, like someone stumbled and tried to grab them on the way down. Somewhere a tinny iPhone alarm pings on and on, unattended.
Renjun picks across the floor, stepping over crumpled bed-sheets and empty miniature bottles of liquor. There are rumpled clothes, too, a linen shirt here, a white sock there. If Renjun knows anything about his colleagues’ drunk habits — and he knows a depressing amount — he has a good idea who they belong to.
The culprit is most likely the lump under the comforter on the massive California king. (Is it still considered a California king if they’re in France?) And Renjun has a good idea who the second huddled figure on the settee by the window is, sound asleep, mouth hanging open in an “o.”
Donghyuck doesn’t stir when Renjun whips the blanket off of him. But he starts awake with a gasp when Renjun shoves a finger up his nose. “Wherezza fire?”
“No fire. Just me.” Renjun wipes his finger on Donghyuck’s shirt. “But I can guarantee you I’m worse.”
“Renjun.” Donghyuck’s mouth falls open again in fuzzy recognition. “Hi. Listen. Before you say anything, I can tell you whatever happened last night, it was Mark’s fau—”
Donghyuck squeaks when Renjun’s hand curls around his windpipe. “One more word, and you’re gonna walk out of this hotel with that golden lamp up your ass.”
“That’s very French of you,” Donghyuck rasps.
“Do not,” Renjun says, and his hand tightens on Donghyuck’s throat to his whimper. “Chenle can have you court-martialed. He knows a guy. And I’m not above cruel and unusual punishment. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal.”
Renjun reluctantly releases Donghyuck and turns to the bedside table, where the iPhone is chiming away, unbothered by the disorder of its surroundings. He shuts it off. Then he rips the comforter off the bed.
Jaemin’s eyelashes flutter in his sleep like a Disney princess. He’s curled on his side, his cheek squished into the pillow, darkened by the tiniest trace of a five o’clock shadow. Technically an eight a.m. shadow. Whatever. Renjun feels utterly neutral about it. He does not wonder what it would feel like scraping against bare skin.
Jaemin is also shirt- and pants-less, in only his Ralph Lauren boxer-briefs that leave little to the imagination. Which Renjun half-suspected from the clothes shorn across the floor.
But the imagined doesn’t come close to the very bare, very male reality in front of him.
There’s so much... skin. A mole on Jaemin’s chest he’s never glimpsed and the smooth angles of naked limbs and, God have mercy, he should not be seeing this, a dark trail of hair tracing down from between Jaemin’s hips and dipping underneath his boxers’ waistband.
Renjun’s eyes dart back to Jaemin’s face and his stomach bottoms out. Because Jaemin is suddenly very awake, with a self-satisfied grin.
Jaemin smoothes one hand down the finely-formed muscles of his chest to his hip bone. “I’d tell you a picture would last longer, but it’s too early for an international sex scandal, don’t you think?”
Renjun drops the comforter like it burned him and jerks away. His cheeks are flaming. “I have no idea what you mean.”
Jaemin’s voice is dark and husky with sleep. “You’re a horrible liar.”
“Haven’t a clue,” Renjun says. You know, like a liar.
“You should probably work on that. You’ll make a terrible politician.”
“You,” Renjun hisses, whipping around to glare at him, “were supposed to be in the stylists’ hotel room by 7:30.”
The mattress groans as Jaemin sits up and props himself against the headboard behind him. It’s golden and tufted velvet and utterly French. He fits well here, among the gilded furnishings of the hotel room, enthroned in ivory bed-sheets. A prince of decadence and bacchanalia like a young Dionysus.
“I was... otherwise engaged.”
Renjun snorts. “Clearly. Do better.”
Jaemin clears his throat, but his voice is still froggy. “Well, my speech yesterday was phenomenal. Suffice to say I killed it, all thanks to Donghyuck.”
“I marvel at your ability to get cute with me after just waking up. I know it went great. I was there.”
“You think I’m cute?”
“You’re—” Endearing. Alluring. Irresistible. “You’re a fucking presidential pain in my ass.”
Jaemin’s eyes are guileless when he brings a hand to his chest. “Thank you. I’m flattered. So anyway, afterwards, Donghyuck and I thought we’d go out for his birthday.”
Renjun makes a twirling motion with his fingers to speed it up.
“Right. Well, you see. The French make this glorious stuff called cognac—”
And Renjun explodes. “I don’t give a shit that you’re a functioning alcoholic, Jaemin! I give a shit that you stood me up like an ugly prom date for your mandatory primping session before we fly back to D.C. Even though I’ve been calling you for the past half-hour trying to wake your ass up. And I had to make up a story to Chenle about why you weren’t in the stylists’ chair yet and then bribe the fucking hotel secretary to get me a copy of your room key cause your Secret Service cronies didn’t have one.”
He runs out of air and takes a deep, gasping breath.
Jaemin’s face is ashen. “But — Donghyuck set an alarm and everything, I must have slept through it—”
“Where’s your phone, Jaemin?” Renjun asks, deadly calm. His eye has started to tic. “I’ve been calling both you and Donghyuck for thirty minutes. Where. Is. Your phone?”
Jaemin reaches back to scratch his nape, avoiding Renjun’s eyes, and the movement does beautiful things to the musculature of his bare arms.
But Renjun is not looking. He simply chooses to not notice how bedded and debauched Jaemin looks, cheeks flushed and hair in pieces. And it makes Renjun see red that he looks even better when he’s a little ashamed.
“Um. I believe it’s somewhere in the hotel fountain.”
Renjun genuinely debates for a moment whether he should continue reaming Jaemin out, or skip straight to where he murders him and makes Donghyuck help him hide his body in the sheepskin rug.
Jaemin must notice Renjun is struggling to keep his eyes from wandering, because a lazy grin spreads across his face. “Whenever you’re done getting an eyeful,” he says, “I’d appreciate it if you gave me some leg room so I can go take a shower. Unless you’d like to join me.”
Kill him, Renjun decides. Definitely kill him.
“If we’re done with the pillow talk,” Donghyuck yawns, “I could kill for a continental breakfast from room service right now. And a mug of tea large enough to drown a senator.”
Renjun and Jaemin stare at him.
“Earl Gray. But I’m not picky.”
“Maybe don’t make threats on the lives of government officials in the First Son’s presence? Excuse me.” Jaemin nudges Renjun aside to slide off the bed. “It’s too early in the morning for another Watergate.”
“Unfortunately, Jaemin may have a point."
Donghyuck huffs. “Both of your bedside manners leave something to be desired.”
“Why are you here?” Renjun asks. “You’re not even working.”
“I,” Donghyuck says, dignified, “am fulfilling the crucial position of Supplier of Vibes.” Then he adds, like an afterthought, “And I’m the birthday bitch.”
“There’s no time for room service, anyway.” In the glimpse Renjun can see from the bed, the en-suite bathroom’s tile floor is sopping wet, the light’s reflection glimmering in the water.
Donghyuck says, “Not even one chocolate chip waffle?” as Renjun marches over to assess the damage.
“If I have to lie to the Press Secretary about why the First Son isn’t on the flight back to D.C. —”
And finds Press Secretary Mark Lee, sound asleep in the white marble bathtub, snoring peacefully as a baby and cradling an empty bottle of Clicquot in his arms.
Renjun, for once, is stunned into silence. Why are all of his coworkers in some kind of delayed, neo-pubescent college boy phase?
“Oh, man, I forgot he crashed there.” Jaemin has materialized at his side. “That’s gonna make showering a little tough.”
“Chenle is gonna castrate me,” Renjun says through gritted teeth. He sniffs Jaemin’s shoulder as he turns to leave. “And you stink like champagne.”
Jaemin follows Renjun out of the bathroom. “Wait.” He dodges in front of him, blocking his path from leaving. “Why is it your fault? Why would Chenle blame you for our being late?”
“Are you really asking me that after almost two years of being your babysitter?”
“Um.” Jaemin scratches the nape of his neck again. “How do I say yes without making you angrier?”
Donghyuck cackles in the background and there’s the sound of rushing water, a loud gurgle and a strangled yell, and Donghyuck sprints past them and out the hotel room door chased by a dripping wet Mark.
“Convenient of him. Hyuck still owes me for that bottle of Clicquot,” Jaemin says.
“I’m done, Jaemin. I’m fucking done. I am so over—” Renjun gestures at Jaemin, still only in his boxer-briefs, and his brain short-circuits for a moment before spitting out, “Whatever hedonistic quarter-life crisis you’re in right now.”
Renjun turns to go, but Jaemin catches him by the arm. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t expect you to understand my answer.”
Jaemin has nothing to say to that for a beat, and the silence swells up heavy and impenetrable, all the unsaid words lying heavy on Renjun’s tongue. Jaemin is still holding his arm.
“Maybe one of these nights,” Jaemin says slowly, carefully, “you could join us sometime. Me and Hyuck and the rest. You out of all of us deserve to have a little fun.”
Renjun balks at his grip, turns and walks to the door, pauses before leaving. He avoids Jaemin’s eyes. “I’ll see you in the stylist’s room in thirty. Preferably wearing pants.”
Jaemin remains rooted to the spot as Renjun leaves. The whisper-quiet hinges can only do so much as he lets the door slam behind him, appropriately theatrical at last.