Chapter Text
Junhui doesn't usually close the restaurant all by himself, but of course, the one night he does, he finds a random drunk sleeping outside on one of the chairs on the terrace. He regrets sending Seungkwan home earlier and the cooks all left once the kitchen closed almost two hours ago. Junhui had a few more things to take care of, and now, on top of it, a stranger in front of his restaurant too.
He sighs before he approaches the man, leaning his back against the glass window. "Hey." Junhui shakes the stranger's shoulder gently. "Hey, mister," he repeats. "Wake up."
"I'm not asleep," the man says, startling Junhui with his deep voice.
"Well, you have to get up then," Junhui presses. "We're closed and I need to put the chairs away."
The stranger grunts and, with a heavy sigh, pushes himself up in his seat, opening his eyes to meet Junhui's. "Holy shit," he lets out.
Junhui backs off.
"Where did you come from?" The man asks, sitting up straight.
Junhui frowns, pointing a finger at the door behind him. "The restaurant," he says. "Obviously..."
"I thought it was closed."
"We're closing right now, which is why I need to ask you to not be asleep somewhere else."
The man chuckles, his lips spreading into a wide, seemingly intoxicated smile. "Funny," he says. "You're funny." He points a finger at Junhui and softly laughs before pushing himself up not without some difficulty. He stumbles a step forward, and Junhui flinches, prepared to catch him in a fall. But the stranger collects himself and comes to a stand next to him. He lifts a hand and points towards the now-empty seat. "There you go."
Junhui inspects him a little closer. He's dressed well, groomed. Despite a slight hint of alcohol, he smells good, too. Like a perfume version of a heady cocktail and expensive tobacco. Broad shoulders, nice build, dark hair. Darker eyes and, oh, looking right at Junhui. How long have they been staring at each other? Junhui wonders about that once he becomes aware of it. The stranger smiles. Has he stopped smiling at all since Junhui asked him to get up from the chair?
He doesn't know how it happens, but the stranger helps him return the chairs and tables to the small shed behind the restaurant. He's not as drunk as Junhui thought, just tired from a few drinks with his work colleagues at Minghao's bar across the street, Junhui learns. He offers the stranger a drink on the house as a thank you for helping him and the man accepts.
"What's your name?" Junhui asks as he plops off the aluminium tops of two beer bottles and puts one on the table in front of the stranger and another one across from him for himself.
"Wonwoo," the man says, lifting his bottle to toast with Junhui. "Yours?"
"Jun."
"Jun," Wonwoo repeats slowly as if tasting it on his tongue. Junhui finds that his name sounds foreign out of Wonwoo's mouth. He can't quite place it. He knows a lot of Korean people, many of whom have used his name before, but he's never heard it spoken in that manner. Perhaps he likes it too. "Is this your restaurant, Jun?" Wonwoo adds, and Junhui concludes that his name definitely sounds different when this man says it.
He nods. "It's seen better days."
"I like it," Wonwoo returns.
Junhui answers with a smile. The truth is that his restaurant hasn't been doing well in a very long time. But his worries feel far away, sitting across from Wonwoo under the dimmed lights of the one lamp he left on in the restaurant. He doesn't make a habit out of drinking with strangers, much less ones this intriguingly attractive. Junhui doesn't want to think of the bills, the debt, the pile of paperwork on his desk at home. Something about Wonwoo makes him want to pretend to be someone else tonight. He's grown rather tired of being himself lately.
"Do you live around here?" Wonwoo asks.
Junhui nods again. "Just a few streets away."
"That's convenient."
Junhui chuckles. "That it is."
"Must be fun too."
"Fun?"
"Living in Chinatown," Wonwoo clarifies. "There's always something going on."
Junhui shrugs. "Where do you live?"
"Songdo."
"Oh," Junhui lets out. "It'll take you a while to get home."
Wonwoo smiles at him. "I guess," he says. "I'm not in a hurry to leave, though."
Junhui hums as he takes a sip of his beer, smiling into the bottle.
"Are you from Incheon?" He asks after a longer pause.
Wonwoo shakes his head. "From Changwon," he answers. "I think my dialect still comes through quite a lot."
Junhui shrugs. "Well, I can't tell obviously."
Wonwoo laughs. "How about you?"
"I'm from China."
Wonwoo playfully rolls his eyes. "That much was obvious," he says with a small chuckle.
And Junhui laughs as well. "Sorry, from Shenzhen," he clarifies. "I don't know if you know it..."
"Of course, I know it."
"Ah."
"How is it?"
"Shenzhen?"
Wonwoo nods.
"I haven't been there in over ten years," Junhui tells him. "But it's very...developed. Very high tech."
"More than Seoul?"
Junhui nods. "More than most cities, I reckon."
"Wow," Wonwoo lets out. "Intriguing."
They empty their beer bottles and Junhui gets them new ones. He enjoys Wonwoo's company and it's obvious that Wonwoo isn't eager to leave either. He's interesting, funny, smart. He tells Junhui about the Three Gorges Dam, which is so massive that it apparently increased Earth's moment of inertia, causing its rotation to slow down, lengthening the day by 0.06 microseconds. Junhui is fascinated by every single one of Wonwoo's anecdotes.
"You are beautiful," Wonwoo says halfway into their third beer. "Painfully so."
"Painfully?"
"Painfully."
"How can it be painful?"
"Well, I've seen you now," Wonwoo answers. "And I already know it will hurt to have to look away eventually."
Junhui grins at him from across the table. "Are you flirting with me?"
"I must be doing a really bad job if you have to ask," Wonwoo says in an amused tone.
"Oh no, you're doing a fantastic job." Junhui brings a hand to his embarrassingly warm ears, making both of them laugh.
"It's almost 2 AM," Junhui proclaims when they finish those bottles as well. "How will you get home?"
Wonwoo taps the pockets of his jeans, looking for something. "Maybe there's a night train or a, uh..." His eyebrows furrow. "Or a bus maybe..." The frown on his face increases with each movement. "Huh, I seem to have misplaced my phone."
They search for the phone all over the restaurant and outside, where Wonwoo sat when Junhui found him. They even go back to check the shed with the chairs and tables, but nothing. Wonwoo's phone is nowhere to be found. Junhui lets Wonwoo dial his number on Junhui's phone, but no one picks up.
"You know what?" Wonwoo eventually says. "I think I left it at the bar."
"That bar?" Junhui points at a few buildings further to the left, across the street from his restaurant.
Wonwoo nods. "I know I put it down on the counter in front of the cash register to pull out my wallet and pay..." He rubs the back of his head. "And I think that's the last time I saw my phone."
"I can call the owner if you want," Junhui suggests. "He's a friend."
Wonwoo shakes a hand in the air. "No need to bother him," he says. "If it's there, it will be there tomorrow as well. But thank you. I'll just go to the main station and see if I can find a ride."
"I tell you what," Junhui starts. "I'll walk with you to Incheon station, it's on my way anyway, and if there's no subway, train or bus, I'll call you a taxi. Okay?"
"You don't have to do that."
Junhui chuckles. "I think I do." Wonwoo blinks at him, and Junhui clears his throat. "When you mentioned the main station just now, you were pointing in the opposite direction."
Wonwoo laughs. "Oh, wow."
"Yeah."
"I see," he says. "I really have no idea how I got here if I'm perfectly honest."
They both laugh at that and agree to walk to the station together. Junhui should be exhausted from a full day of work at this point. It's late and he's had a few beers on top of it, but strangely he feels energised if anything. It's a nice walk with the fresh spring air caressing his face in a sobering manner. He likes to see Chinatown late at night when everything is closed. The architecture, the lanterns, the lights, the absence of crowds.
And of course, there's Wonwoo.
They get closer physically. Their hands graze each other as they move between their bodies, their upper arms bump against each other in laughter. Wonwoo grabs Junhui's arm a few times as he tells a story. And in a moment of complete insanity, Junhui puts his head on Wonwoo's shoulder for a few seconds as they stop on an empty street. He takes a deep breath afterwards and turns his head, wondering where he found the courage to get that close to a complete stranger. It's so unlike him. The whole night, Junhui feels like a completely different person, and he enjoys it. He savours it. And he embraces the uninhibited person that Wonwoo seems to bring out in him.
If Wonwoo minds any of the proximity and physical contact, he doesn't show it. On the contrary, he initiates most of it. At least Junhui thinks he does.
"What are you thinking about?" Junhui asks after a while of silently walking next to each other.
Wonwoo looks up at the sky. A crescent moon has brightly appeared behind the clouds. "The fact that all the planets of the solar system fit between Earth and the moon," he says, followed by a quick chuckle.
Junhui's eyes widen. If that's truly a fact, it's one he'd never heard before. "That can't be," he lets out.
Wonwoo laughs. "It's true."
"But the moon is right there," Junhui argues, pointing at the sky with an index finger.
Wonwoo nods. "So close, yet so far away..."
"Even Pluto?"
Another laugh. "Even Pluto."
"Wow."
"Isn't it amazing?" Wonwoo says, more as a statement than a question.
Junhui nods, stopping in his tracks to stare at the moon for a little while. Wonwoo stands in front of him, and Junhui can tell that he's looking at his face.
"The universe is so vast and yet..." Wonwoo starts. "Here we are."
Junhui averts his gaze from the moon to look at him. They're standing close to each other, just as close as they did earlier when Junhui couldn't help himself and leaned on Wonwoo's shoulder. This time, he feels the same pull, but he stands firm, trying to be satisfied with mere eye contact. "Here we are," he parrots.
"Somehow we met tonight," Wonwoo lets out just above a whisper as he leans in closer towards Junhui's face. His eyes scanning for a reaction.
"We met," Junhui repeats, closing the distance. And his mind goes blank when their lips meet. He doesn't think of the moon and the planets anymore, or what time it is and if any of the people he knows could see him. He doesn't think of the fact that he's kissing a stranger in the street and that he doesn't want to stop. He doesn't think at all. If he thought of anything in that moment, he might pull away, shocked at what had gotten into him to be doing this.
Instead, he leans in more, grabbing a handful of Wonwoo's shirt and pulling him even closer, deepening the kiss, enjoying the feeling of Wonwoo's hand on his lower back. All of his senses are alert and numb at the same time. He's aware of every bit of his skin touching Wonwoo's, the taste of beer and saliva, Wonwoo's perfume mixed with the greasy scent of Junhui's restaurant. The light breeze in the air, the sounds their lips make as they softly move against each other and the pretty little breaths that escape Wonwoo's nose. He hears himself moan and it seems that's what it takes for him to break the kiss.
Wonwoo chuckles, and Junhui feels it on his face. He knows they can't remain like this but he doesn't want it to stop. Not tonight. In another moment of craziness, he hears himself ask, "Do you want to come to my place?"
"That seems... Fast."
"That's all it can be..."
"Fast?"
"Tonight."
Wonwoo laughs. "I'm not sure I'm following."
"I'm not quite myself tonight," Junhui tells him. "And, to be frank, I would like to take advantage of that." He cups one of Wonwoo's cheeks. "I would like you to take advantage of that..."
Wonwoo doesn't say anything for a while, leaning his head into Junhui's hand. "And tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow we go our separate ways," Junhui concludes.
"I don't know if I like the sound of that," Wonwoo whispers, touching his lips against Junhui's without fully connecting them.
"It's all I can offer right now," Junhui whispers back.
"Is it okay if we talk about it in the morning again?" Wonwoo asks, leaning his forehead against Junhui's.
"The answer will be the same."
Junhui leads Wonwoo to his bedroom and leaves him there as he goes to take a shower. He might have lost his mind tonight, but he hasn't lost his senses, and he doesn't want to have sex, smelling like a Chinese restaurant. Out of habit, he puts on pyjamas when he finishes and Wonwoo laughs at him when he returns to the bedroom, where Wonwoo has already taken off his shirt.
"I'm half naked," he says, laughing. "And you are somehow wearing... More?"
"I'm sorry," Junhui says just above a whisper when he approaches Wonwoo's lips. "It's not very sexy..."
"Oh, it's brilliant," Wonwoo pulls him in, making Junhui sit on his lap while he leans back against the bedframe. "I'll enjoy taking it off."
They kiss for what feels like an eternity and not nearly enough until Wonwoo finally slides his hands inside the back of Junhui's pyjama pants and squeezes his ass cheeks, making him moan so loudly that Junhui has to put a hand over his mouth.
"Do we have to be quiet for some reason?" Wonwoo jokes.
"A little bit," Junhui says, making Wonwoo's eyes grow wide. "I mean, the walls are quite thick but I have one of my servers sleeping on the couch in the living room at the moment."
Wonwoo furrows his eyebrows.
"He doesn't have a place to live right now," Junhui clarifies.
"I see," Wonwoo says, flipping them over so that Junhui lies on the mattress. "I'll try my best to keep quiet and have you make all the noise."
And Junhui wants to protest, but Wonwoo only smirks before he leans in to kiss a stripe from behind his ear, down his neck, stopping just above his exposed collarbones.
"How attached are you to these pyjamas?"
"Huh?"
"These fucking buttons are so small," Wonwoo explains, fumbling around with the fabric in his hands.
And Junhui laughs. "I don't care about it at all."
"Great," Wonwoo says, giving Junhui a wide smile before he rips his shirt open with one swift move. Junhui gasps.
And he melts into a puddle of lust as Wonwoo's lips do the lord's work on his chest and torso as they work their way down. It's been a while for Junhui but something about Wonwoo's body against his is exceptionally exciting. Wonwoo takes full control, and against Junhui's nature, he finds himself happy to relinquish it.
That night, under the pressure of Wonwoo's broad shoulders and well-defined chest on top of him, Junhui finds perfect bliss.