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“Judge Kim?” someone says, again.
Gaon blinks back.
“Excuse me,” he says, straightening his posture. “You were saying. About the—staffing update.”
“Yes,” the producer nods. “You’ll meet the new clerk this afternoon. We’ve also added a member to the team to assist with public correspondence. Sorting through—”
Gaon catches himself drifting again. Under the cover of his leatherette folder, he pinches himself in the leg. Hard. Across the table, Jinjoo’s eyeing him. Yohan isn’t. He’s watching the producer with a calm, indifferent smile. Idly jotting notes. Maybe they really can’t…
Few people can. Mostly they can’t. It’s his luck, to be the fucking—weirdest one. One of the weirdest ones. Point-two percent. A biological throwback, like he still lives in a tree and spends all night scenting aggressively against tigers. Sometimes he thinks he should finally get hormone therapy, those shots that keep you from reacting to every little stimulus like an unleashed dog, from walking around every room with the hair on your nape standing up. He should look up clinics at lunchtime.
People like you, Gaon-ah, you’re meant to keep us all—
Gaon shoves it down. All of it.
Folds his fingers into his hand, tight, so the nails will bite the skin.
“Thanks for all your work,” he says, when he’s supposed to. The moment he can flee, he does. He scrambles up to the restroom on the floor above theirs, locks himself into a single-stall privacy cubicle, and bangs his forehead into the wall.
Somebody in this building is in heat. Full heat. And feeling like their guts are being squeezed through an accordion. They've maybe got some kind of inflammatory disorder, on top of the demanding thrum of estrus; heat alone shouldn't be putting a human body in this much distress. Whoever it is hasn’t even tried to block, hasn’t used so much as a scent towelette, and definitely hasn’t taken anything for the pain. Ignoring it all is like pretending Gaon can’t see someone bleeding out, like walking neatly around some poor bastard’s severed leg. His body feels—responsible. Urgently. In several different ways.
Gaon looks down at the front of his slacks. “I hate you,” he says, under his breath.
When he’s calmed down enough he adjusts himself, washes his hands, checks his hair and his slight flush in the mirror. He looks mostly fine. Mostly together. But then he comes out of the stairwell, into the hall that leads to Yohan’s office, and his knees start to buckle. Whoever it is, they’ve just passed through this way. It’s incredible they’re not crying.
“Judge Kim,” Yohan calls.
His door’s open. Gaon freezes where he is. Considers actually running away. But then he swallows, and comes into Yohan’s office at a normal pace, somehow. Yohan’s sitting behind his desk, leaned back, slowly turning a pen around in his fingers. This room also smells a little bit like someone’s dying in a rictus inside it, almost as bad as the hallway. So it must be Yohan. But it can't be Yohan. Because he only makes that coolly unreadable half-smile and says, “You seem distracted today.”
“Do I?” Gaon says. There’s sweat going down the back of his collar. He can feel it going clammy every time he stands under a particularly powerful air-conditioning vent. There’s one right here in front of the windows.
Yohan gives him a drier look.
“There’s,” Gaon says. “Something I ate.”
“Ah,” Yohan says.
“I’ve been,” Gaon says. “Looking into those prosecution records. I’ll put together a file of the most relevant cases.”
“Good,” Yohan nods.
“Elijah asked me to make manduguk tonight,” Gaon says, now just fully rambling. “And I had some brisket saved from yesterday. Will you be—”
“I’m afraid I’m out again,” Yohan says. He smiles a little more apologetically. Then fishes into his pocket, holds a keychain up, and tosses it in Gaon’s direction. Gaon catches it. “Take my car home. I’ll take the Escalade.”
“Picking up a lot of groceries?” Gaon says. Yohan looks amused. He’s probably going to go somewhere with K in a ski mask. Terrorize someone. Maybe it’s better Gaon doesn’t know.
“Something like that,” Yohan says. “Do you need anything?”
“Hm?”
“For your stomach,” Yohan says.
“Oh, no,” Gaon says, too quickly. “I’m—sure I’ll be fine.”
“As long as you’re sure,” Yohan says. His mouth quirks at the corner. Gaon knows when he’s being made fun of, so he frowns, and Yohan smiles again, for real. Then he picks a folder up and opens it, so Gaon nods and leaves.
The smell in the hall is… easing. The filtration here is really good.
By the end of the day Gaon’s somehow both twitchy and tired; the scent faded, or he lost the thread of it, amidst the other passing flares of random caffeine headaches and upset stomachs and the nervous excitement of the newer interns. Not to mention the specific flashes of damp arousal that he always senses when he hurries by the third-floor production assistant’s desk. Maybe someone’s supervisor finally noticed them rolling around on the floor and howling in agony and sent them home. Without the distraction he got through six more case files, and now his eyes feel crossed.
Down in the garage, Gaon unlocks the Cadillac. Opens the door, and then grips it so hard the rubber seal squeaks.
The car—reeks.
Maybe he’s hallucinating.
Tentatively, Gaon leans in. Sniffs. And then he quivers, head to toe. His hand braces onto the leather seat. His face… he’s in a parking garage. There are cameras. Think like—think like Yohan. Gaon fumbles his phone out of his pocket, drops it onto the floor of the driver’s seat. “Oops, shit,” he says, out loud, and then he bends down, obviously to grab it. Actually, to get his nose closer to the seat. Which smells unbelievably and undeniably and maddeningly like—pussy. Like that same brutally aching, now urgently familiar cunt, a perfume exaggerated by the hot throes of heat. Like a giant cartoon hand yanking him by the throat and the dick and throttling him. Gaon actually slides to his knees on the concrete and presses his face fully into the spot, before he can think rationally and stop himself. He’s going to fucking explode and die.
After a deep breath, he struggles himself back up. Climbs into the driver’s seat, slams the door. Kicks his phone, which he didn’t even pick up yet. He bends and fumbles to grab it, knocks his head against the steering wheel.
Then sits strangling it for a moment.
Yohan—
Gaon dials. It picks up after two rings. “Yes?” Yohan says, in a perfectly measured voice.
“I’m—in your car,” Gaon manages.
“And?”
“Are you,” Gaon says, past the choking sensation that’s gathered under his Adam’s apple. “Feeling alright?”
“Perfectly fine,” Yohan says.
“Bullshit,” Gaon bursts out.
There’s a brief pause. Then the sound of a door shutting.
“What would make you say that,” Yohan says, still calm and even. But more quietly.
“I can—smell it,” Gaon says.
“Smell what?”
“You’re,” Gaon tries. “Hurting.”
Yohan’s silent for a moment.
“So that’s what you’re really catching,” he muses. He sounds interested. Curious. “The pain.”
“How are you even—”
“Practice,” Yohan says.
Gaon shuts his eyes. Squeezes the steering wheel again with his free hand, wrings it like he’d like to wring his own neck. Maybe Yohan’s, too.
“You knew,” he accuses.
“How? Your designation’s not in the file,” Yohan says, innocently. “Of course, you’re free to withhold that kind of information. As a protected minority—”
“You fucking knew,” Gaon grits out.
“I guessed.”
“You did this on purpose.”
“I’m sorry to dent your image of my powers,” Yohan says, “but biology isn’t one of the things I have total control over.”
“People don’t go to work when—”
“People do everything you can imagine, and more so, and worse,” Yohan says. “You’re just one of the lucky few who have to be so aware of it. Like me.”
“What are you going to do?” Gaon says.
“Do?”
“You said you’re—going out,” Gaon says. “Aren’t you—”
“Is that any of your business?”
No, Gaon thinks.
Yes, yes, yes.
“Come home and eat,” Gaon says.
“I thought it’d be difficult,” Yohan says. “For you.”
“You don’t care if it is,” Gaon says, angrily. “You tested me at work. In front of other people.”
“And I expected you to control yourself, regardless,” Yohan says. “Was that an unreasonable assumption?”
“No,” Gaon admits. “Just—”
“What,” Yohan says.
Gaon shuts his eyes. Leans his head back against the seat.
“Can you… take painkillers, or something?” he says. “Please?”
There’s silence again. A long silence, like Yohan is considering what to say. Or maybe he’s distracted, paying attention to something else. On the phone it’s so hard to know. Uncomfortably hard, sometimes. Like having a part of your brain muted.
“You really get that much,” Yohan says, at last.
“Yes,” Gaon huffs.
“I’ll be back at eight,” Yohan says, briskly.
He hangs up.
“Come on,” Gaon mutters.
“Oh, you are here,” Elijah says, disdainfully, when Yohan pads into the kitchen. He puts a hand against his heart, mimes staggering like he’s been hit with an arrow. And then gives her a flat, unmoved stare. “Don’t eat all the lotus root yourself,” she sniffs.
“Or what?” Yohan says.
“I’ll roll over your toes!”
“I’d feel very threatened if this house didn’t have stairs,” Yohan says. She swipes for him. Gaon dodges the backswing and sets a dish of zucchini down.
“There’s plenty for everybody,” Gaon says. “Behave yourselves.”
“I haven’t done anything,” Elijah blatantly lies.
“I’m not laying blame,” Gaon says. “I’m just asking for peace at the table.”
“Yes, what kind of judge would you be, laying blame on the offending party,” Yohan says. “A terrible notion. I shudder to think.”
“I can go outside and feed this all to foxes,” Gaon warns.
Yohan laughs. Elijah slaps his arm. And then sits up straight, folds her hands politely, and waits for her soup.
They eat.
Yohan must’ve taken good painkillers. And maybe rolled scent-block on. He’s in a slouchy sweater, a pair of joggers, with half-damp hair over his eyes. Gaon’s trying not to pay extra attention to him. Partly because it’s… unfair. There are things people can and can’t control; Yohan was right about that. And it’s not the first time he’s ever smelled Yohan’s—designation, Gaon thinks, trying to stick to using polite words at the dinner table. It’s just the first time it’s been the only thing he could feel or sense or think about, to such a blinding degree. Maybe the first time since puberty. The world is full of—designations. He’s approaching thirty; if he hadn’t gotten used to tuning a lot of things out by now, he’d probably be institutionalized. Some people like him are.
“Pass me the eggs?” Elijah says.
“Please?” Yohan says, sarcastically.
“Or else,” Elijah glowers.
“Hm,” Yohan says. “How familiar.”
He passes the eggs.
Gaon focuses on eating mandu. One at a time, methodically. They’re the really good ones, overstuffed and fresh-made; he stopped at the market on the way home instead of using the ones from the freezer. Just an impulse. They’ll still be eating them tomorrow. He bought a lot.
“You gave him more brisket than me,” Elijah says.
“There’s more,” Gaon says. “I’ll get you some.”
He fishes around in the pot. Dishes out a little more brisket and broth on top of her bowl. Yohan raises his eyebrows, so Gaon puts another ladle of meat into his soup, too.
“Now he’s still got more,” Elijah mutters. Gaon laughs, because they're both so ridiculous. She looks up and smiles, his cheeks a little pinkly embarrassed. “Don't play favorites,” she says, sulkily.
“I wouldn't dare,” Gaon says.
He rounds up the dishes, after. Loads the washing machine. Elijah’s gone somewhere to watch a lecture, but Yohan’s hanging around in the doorway like he’s got nowhere else to be. “Still hungry?” Gaon says.
“No,” Yohan says.
“There’s more lotus root,” Gaon says. He opens the door of the fridge. Hold the glass storage container up.
“Did you hide it?” Yohan says, bemused.
“You do usually finish it.”
“I’m entitled to an appetite in my own house,” Yohan says. Gaon laughs again. “What?”
“You used to tell me you didn’t taste anything,” Gaon grins. “Look at me, I’m Kang Yohan, I have no palate, so I only chew and swallow. Oh ho ho.”
Yohan gives him an incredulous snort.
“Who says it isn’t the texture?”
“I say,” Gaon says. “I can tell—”
He catches himself. Not quite in time. Yohan gives him a long, thoughtful look.
“You’re exceptionally sensitive,” he says. It’s not a question.
“Is that the right word for it?” Gaon says, irritably. “Makes me sound like a—crybaby.”
“Are you not?” Yohan says.
“You can microwave plain rice for dinner tomorrow,” Gaon huffs. He presses the start button on the dishwasher, hard.
“I didn’t plan it,” Yohan says.
“Hm?”
“I didn’t plan it in advance,” Yohan says, again. Now Gaon looks at him. There’s something almost like discomfort in his face. Maybe just tension. The regular, emotional kind. The kind that doesn’t really make much of a smell until there’s sweating. “I should be in senescence, at my barren age,” Yohan says, and then blatantly watches Gaon’s face for the reaction. It's funny whenever he does that; like a cat knocking a waterglass down, so you’ll gasp. “I’m flattered that you seem so surprised.”
“It’s, I don’t,” Gaon flounders. “You don’t need to explain. You were right, it’s—none of my business.”
“None at all,” Yohan agrees.
“I’ll… I have that file to finish,” Gaon says, like a coward.
“You do,” Yohan says.
Gaon escapes.
Goes to his room. Locks the door. Stares at the bed for a moment, blank as a piece of paper, and then he strips his sweatshirt off, steps out of his sweatpants, and pads into the ensuite’s shower. Turns it on and jerks out a curse when the cold spray sears him. He stands shivering under it for a few seconds and then makes it warmer. Washes his hair, exfoliates his face, goes through all the motions.
The cold water wasn’t enough, though. When he gets to soaping up his junk he thinks guiltily about the car again, the way the seat held the pussy smell in it. Deepened it, somehow, mingled saddle leather with cunt. Then he thinks about the way he'd rubbed his face into it so shamelessly. It was like—
Gaon stops and stares at the wall.
He’s ridden in that car dozens of times. With Yohan right next to him. On a normal day, he’d barely get a whiff of anything. At the most, maybe irritation. Maybe a little edge of arousal—not the sexual kind, just the blood-pumping kind. Especially when Yohan was doing something nuts like grabbing the steering wheel. Through clothes you rarely get everything, anyway, unless you’re really seeking it; laundry soap and perfume and deodorant all muddle the air. And Yohan must typically wear strong blockers, patches, must typically not—Gaon rinses himself, quickly. Shuts the water off. Maybe a little too tightly; the handle makes a hard-stop thunking noise. Gaon yanks his towel off the hook. Scrubs himself dry, goes to tear clothes out of the dresser. When he’s not naked anymore, he stalks through the halls barefoot. The floors in here are so cold.
Yohan’s at his desk, sipping a whiskey.
“You didn’t do it on purpose?” Gaon demands.
“As I said,” Yohan says, slowly.
“You didn’t—mark the car on purpose?” Gaon says, sharply. Yohan’s jaw and neck muscles tighten up for a second and then relax again. It’s not the only part of him that does. Whatever he put on after his shower, it’s not enough to suppress this anymore. “Don’t do that,” Gaon warns.
“It’s not intentional,” Yohan says, defensively. Like he’s not the same guy who must’ve stuck a hand down his pants and wiped pussy-juice across his own driver’s seat before Gaon went down, like an idiot, and climbed in after him.
“But the car was,” Gaon insists.
“Yes,” Yohan says.
“What did you think I’d do?” Gaon says. “What did you expect me to do?”
“To control yourself,” Yohan says.
“What if I’d come upstairs?”
“And raped me?” Yohan says. Gaon jerks back. His stomach drops; it’s full enough that the sensation is nauseating. “Isn’t that what you’re implying?”
“I wouldn’t—”
“I know,” Yohan says.
“You can’t know,” Gaon says, contrarily. His heart’s beating hard and irregularly. “You couldn’t know. You were—playing with me. And yourself. You could’ve gotten—”
“Hurt?” Yohan says. “You begged me to take painkillers. Now you're afraid you would've held me down?”
“I—might’ve,” Gaon says. “Somebody might’ve. You don’t know.”
“People with your designation are fifty percent more likely to be convicted when facing assault charges, compared to the rest of the population,” Yohan says. “It’s illegal to discriminate, of course. But mass opinion holds that you’re natural predators.”
Gaon swallows.
His nails are in his palms again. Their usual rut. No matter how many times he rubs hand cream in at night, there are still—tough spots. Callouses. There’s so much pain in the world. It would be incredible if you could build a callous to that, instead of just getting lumps on your skin.
“If that’s what you think,” Gaon says, woodenly, “then I’ll get out of your house.”
“It isn’t,” Yohan says. “I think you’re proving my point.”
“Can you just please,” Gaon says, and looks away from him. It was hard to see him anyway, with pathetic furious tears crowding in. “Can you please say something that makes sense, and stop—trying to lead me somewhere? I can’t do this right now. If you want me to get out, say so, and if you don’t—”
“Have you ever thought about what it’s for?” Yohan says.
“What what’s for.”
“Your gift,” Yohan says.
Gaon stares at him. And then huffs a laugh.
“Gift,” he repeats. “Sure. It’s a real fucking gift to—”
“To know with certainty when someone’s lying or scared,” Yohan says. “When they’re attracted and receptive to invitation. When they’re so angry they’re about to pull a knife. To track one person’s sweat in a crowded room. To be able to read the human body at a level most people don’t bother to. Or couldn’t understand.”
Gaon wipes his eyes, roughly.
“So I’m your experiment,” Gaon says. “Seeing whether I’ll bite or fetch.” His throat feels like there’s a layer of clay in it. “You want a—useful animal at your heel.”
“At my side,” Yohan says.
“Go fuck yourself,” Gaon says, vehemently.
He goes back the way he came. Back to his room. Stepping over his discarded clothes. Gaon stands by the bed and then sinks forward onto it, bent over, like his body doesn’t work right, can’t keep itself up. He covers his face with his hands and makes a noise into them like he’s dying; his chest aches. His eyes ache. He wants to cry, and to kick something so hard it flies to pieces.
Behind him, the door shuts.
Gaon jerks up. Yohan’s come into his room, closed the door after himself. He doesn't have a shred of mercy, does he. “Get out!” Gaon says.
“You don’t trust yourself,” Yohan says.
“I told you to get out,” Gaon snaps.
“You don’t trust yourself,” Yohan repeats, coming closer and closer. “You hold back, and you hold back, and you hold back. You squeeze yourself down into a tiny ball, because you think it’s the right way to behave. The normal way. But that's all based on what others fear, and not what you know. Your instincts aren't overriding your reasoning. They're enhancing it.”
“What should I do? Go around sticking my nose into people’s crotches like a fucking dog?” Gaon demands. “That’s what you want? That’s why you’re so interested in me, because you want a—lie detector? A radar system?”
“You’ve wrapped yourself in plastic,” Yohan says. “You’re suffocating. Pretending all the things you can sense don’t exist.”
“You’re sweating,” Gaon says. “I can sense that. You’re sweating through your blockers right now.”
Yohan says nothing. His throat bobs. Gaon turns around. Picks his sweatshirt off the floor. Tosses it to the foot of the bed. “Leave me alone,” Gaon says. “This isn’t… the time to have this conversation.”
There’s a soft rustling sound behind him. And then, stronger, richer, that smell. Gaon turns around to yell at him. But then stares, transfixed, while Yohan stares back levelly. His hand’s moving inside of his joggers. When Yohan pulls his fingers free, they’re wet. Shining with it, thickly.
Yohan holds them out.
Gaon’s mouth opens and shuts. Roughly forty dozen things to say fly through his brain and then patter right out of his ears. “No,” he says, eventually. He has no idea what he’s refusing. Maybe everything in the world. Maybe he’s asking the planet and the room to stop spinning. But nothing does. Yohan just takes an infuriating step closer. He holds his cunt-smeared fingers right under Gaon’s nose.
Gaon makes a startled inhale.
Pain, still. But also pleasure. A body fed and satiated, by—him. A contented heaviness. Vague rumblings in the gut. Above it all a throbbing, relentless, pulsatingly desperate—
Desire.
“Everyone lies,” Yohan says. “But not everything.”
Gaon’s heart shudders. He touches Yohan’s wrist to steady himself. Yohan doesn’t shake him off, doesn’t do anything but wait. His body's… his body's like a thundercloud, blocking the sun. Gaon can't—no, that’s not true. He can see, he can think, he can—decide.
He can always decide.
Gaon parts his lips.
And carefully, slowly, takes Yohan’s fingers inside his mouth. Shuts his eyes helplessly with hunger at the taste. Sucks Yohan’s warm, damp skin. The tacky, sour-musk moisture of his cunt. Then pulls Yohan's fingers out again, holding onto his forearm, lowering it between their chests. Now Yohan’s breathing harder than he is.
“You said,” Gaon manages, “like me.”
“I did,” Yohan says.
“Then you’re,” Gaon tries. “You can scent-read.”
“I can,” Yohan says.
“You use it,” Gaon says. “To manipulate people. To manipulate me.”
“Yes,” Yohan says.
“So you can—tell.”
“From the first time I touched your collar,” Yohan says.
Gaon closes his eyes in agony. When he doesn’t move, Yohan slides his forearm free of that loose grip. His fingers touch softly against Gaon's lips again, and Gaon lets him in. Lets Yohan draw them out and then push them back in, three at a time, all at once, like he’s fucking Gaon’s mouth. “I’ll teach you everything I know,” Yohan says. His voice isn’t quite as steady as his hand is. “Don’t fear what’s part of you.”
Gaon-ah, people like you… you’re meant to keep us all—safe.
Gaon slides hands around Yohan’s waist and opens his eyes. Yohan takes his hand away. Pulls him closer by the back of the neck.
That day, before he'd left for school, he'd caught the edge of it. Just the edge, little enough that you could think it was a phantom smell, distorted by the heat. In summer the restaurant dumpster was sometimes an overpowering distraction from anything a human could put out.
“Appa,” Gaon had said, leaning his head into the kitchen. “Are you… feeling fine?”
His father had—smiled.
Gaon's eyes and nose had found the pain easily. But if his father wanted to put on a show and pretend, it was his right. Just because Gaon could tell things about people didn't mean he got to throw it in their faces.
“Gaon-ah,” his father had said, haltingly. “You…”
“Hm?”
“You’re a good boy,” his father had said, slow-voiced, like saying it weighed on him. “Do good, today.”
“Hey,” Gaon had frowned. Instead of laughing his father had sighed and then unexpectedly given him a little money. Told Gaon to get himself a big lunch, to eat well.
He'd—
Maybe he'd been—waiting. Hoping. That Gaon would say—
Because it wasn't only pain. Pain was sharp, a tang in the back of the mouth, whether deep or shallow. It moved through the body in a current, squeezed out the pores, dissipated and returned in tidal ebbs. It could mingle with other sensations. Usually did. Gaon had felt the other thing, sniffed and found it, and then selfishly pushed it aside. It was too—large. Too strange and heavy and solid, like touching a wall of ice. Too hard to understand. He'd told himself, later. Later I’ll—
He rolls over. Wipes his eyes. He tries to do it silently, but his ragged breathing probably gives him away. Maybe Yohan's not awake anymore.
But Gaon's hopes are almost always vain ones. Beside him, Yohan sighs.
“Dreaming?” he says.
“No,” Gaon manages.
“You smell like grief,” Yohan says, unsympathetically. Gaon wipes his eyes again and rolls over to glare daggers at him. “That's better,” Yohan murmurs.
“Just because you can pick up on cues,” Gaon says, “doesn't mean the feelings behind them are any of your—”
“Why should people like us have to pretend?” Yohan says.
“I’m still entitled to privacy.”
“You elected to fuck me because you knew I wanted you to,” Yohan says, levelly. “How much privacy does that leave me.”
“I wasn’t mind-reading!” Gaon says. “You put your fingers in my mouth!”
They haven't put their clothes back on. It's got to be nearing midnight; Gaon was half-dozing before the thoughts crept in. There's a part of Gaon that thought Yohan would slide out of bed and get dressed and leave immediately after his second orgasm, but he hasn't. He went to piss and then laid back down while Gaon was wiping himself off, and since then they've just been… like this. Resting side-by-side in the dark.
“So what was it,” Yohan says. “That's giving you such regrets.”
There's a new bitter line in his voice. In his scent. It occurs to Gaon suddenly, why that might be. What he might think. He was hot inside, and he rode in Gaon’s lap like he was chasing something. But he barely made a sound.
“I was thinking about my father,” Gaon says, honestly. “The day he—died.”
Yohan studies his face. Doesn't say anything. Maybe Gaon's imagining the little bit of wary surprise.
“You think you could've stopped him,” Yohan says. “Because you knew something was wrong.”
Knowing it, and hearing it out loud. Both are worse than the other in different ways. Neither’s better. Gaon's chest shrivels painfully, then expands again with an ache. Breathing's a chore for a moment.
“Yes,” Gaon chokes out.
“He might’ve done it regardless,” Yohan says.
“You don't know that.”
“Neither do you,” Yohan says. “You’re layering guilt on yourself, when what you should be doing is realizing the need to embrace your capabilities.”
“This isn't a teachable moment,” Gaon says, angrily. “This is my—do you ever think before you talk to me? Do you think about the fact that I'm a human being? I'm not a character in a story you're editing. You can't just tell me what I should do, and then expect—”
“My father beat me every day for being no better than an animal,” Yohan says. Gaon stops mid-sentence. His mouth hangs open, stupidly. “He was trying to strike a soul into me, I think,” Yohan says. “If I ever spoke about what I sensed, he'd use a whip. I'm uninterested in mummifying myself so I can stay within arbitrary limits I was born to exceed. It's just an ancient superstition, wrapped in polite excuses. Fear of the other.”
Gaon stares at him.
Yohan doesn’t look back. He looks at the ceiling, one hand resting over his bare chest. His own thumb strokes against his sternum, slowly. Pensively. After a while he inhales, and then he smiles coldly. “And there we are,” he says. “Now I suppose I have the right to pry again, in your mind. To do as I please. Thanks to the ennobling sanctity of victimhood.” Yohan turns to glance at him, sarcastically. “If you’ll abandon your convictions for pity after hearing one sad tale, how can you be certain you have any?”
“Why do you do this?” Gaon wonders.
“Make up a story?”
“You didn’t make it up.”
“You don’t know what I’m capable of,” Yohan says, dismissively.
“You didn’t make up the pain,” Gaon says. “And you do that over and over. You treat your own agony like it’s—bait. Like it’s nothing.”
“I can’t be free of it, but I can’t use it to get what I want, either?” Yohan says. “Which one of us is the cruel one, again?”
His mouth’s tightened up.
Gaon looks at it, the bowlike top lip. They didn’t really kiss. They did all that, but barely kissed. Yohan grabbed the hand on his waist, and rolled his hips, and stared down like he was trying to read a page in a book that kept moving. His hair kept going into his eyes and hiding him. Hooding him, like a cobra. Or like a blindfolded man against a wall.
“There’s still something you want?” Gaon says, more softly.
Yohan gives him a strange, cautious look.
“I said as much,” he says.
“Me,” Gaon says. “At your side.”
“So you can listen.”
“What about… elsewhere,” Gaon says, risking it. He brushes fingers against Yohan’s stomach. He's still in the tail-end of heat. Still aching dully, body holding out its instinctual hope for a knot. Yohan’s eyes flick down to look at where he's being touched, and then up to Gaon’s face. His smell’s warming. It’s tugging at Gaon’s gut like a pair of hands. For once it feels—right isn’t quite the word. But it doesn’t feel wrong. It feels like accelerating into the tail of a turn; if you don’t, you’ll drop behind. Or tip over.
“Not by my side, and not at heel,” Yohan says. “There’s another position that’s piqued your interest?”
“On top of you,” Gaon says, tasting wind.
“That’ll take work,” Yohan muses.
“I’ll knot you,” Gaon says, “unless you say I can’t.”
Yohan’s throat bobs. His eyes don’t move much, but they move enough. There’s a brief note in his scent, in his fresh sweat, that’s like—fear. It is fear. But also something else. Yohan’s thighs have pressed together, like Gaon’s just jerked the steering wheel of the car. Yanked them into another lane. “Are you on birth control?” Gaon asks, like he should’ve asked the first time.
“I’m too old to conceive,” Yohan says.
“I guess we’ll find out,” Gaon says. Yohan swallows again, and the pulse in his belly jumps under Gaon’s hand. But he doesn’t say no.
Gaon shifts up. Slides a leg over Yohan’s, and then slides over on top of him, hips on his hips, arm braced by his shoulder. He leans down. Presses their mouths together. Yohan doesn’t push him away, like he might’ve; instead he tilts up, opens his lips. Meets Gaon’s tongue with his own. Gaon’s getting hard right against his cunt, between his thighs. Swelling and rising and feeling slightly drunk with the movement of blood to his groin. Gaon kisses his mouth, then his chin, his cheek, his neck, the dip of a collarbone; Gaon puts a palm against his hot, damp pussy. He probably pushed Gaon’s come out and wiped it away when he went to the bathroom. But maybe not all of it. Gaon ruts a middle finger up into him, pumps it gently. Turns it, to make Yohan's breath catch, then pushes the lips apart to glance greedily at him. He's so ruddied. Shiny everywhere. Yohan pulls a leg up, bent-kneed, and lets Gaon further in.
When Gaon angles his tip inside, Yohan makes a choked-off sound. But he nods his head, looks like he’s gritting his teeth. Maybe he's sore. They were kind of rough on each other. “You okay?” Gaon says.
“You’ll know if you hurt me,” Yohan says.
“I’d like to prevent that?” Gaon huffs.
Yohan, for some reason, laughs. It’s quick, and you could imagine it was something else. A creak of the bed, a sigh.
Gaon works himself back and forth. Yohan’s hips chase his, oppositional at first, and then perfectly together in synch, with a rush of sensation that floods up Gaon’s spine like strung firecrackers. His back rounds, his hips jerk. Yohan’s biting his cheek again. He smells wild. Like come and sweat, and like wanting and getting, and faintly like blood. Maybe from the place his teeth are clamped.
“Are you,” Yohan says, “about—”
“Yeah, in a second,” Gaon says. “I think?”
Yohan’s silent. Well, no, not silent. He’s huffing rapidly through his nose while Gaon rocks into him, and into him, and into him. Maybe Gaon’s focusing on his dick a little too hard. He knows how to do this, it's not exactly complicated to clamp down and push it out, but it's also not like he's been… practicing.
“You’ve—”
“Not—with someone,” Gaon pants.
Yohan’s eyes bore in.
“Never?”
“No,” Gaon says, foolishly. Yohan’s scent does something. Hard to say exactly what; it’s not a taste Gaon can say he’s encountered a lot. Excitement. Something—harder. That faint scent of blood, again. Viciously bright, like from a fresh cut.
“Do it,” Yohan orders. He hooks a foot behind Gaon’s thigh, behind his ass, and—shoves him forward, deep. Gaon jolts. “Now.”
Gaon pops his knot.
For a moment he thinks he might die. There’s a snap of pressure when he swells and locks in, briefly unpleasant, like he might actually burst. Or split. Beneath him, Yohan makes a gasped, short bark of a sound. His back arches up, his leg squeezes around Gaon’s thigh again, wrenchingly tight. There is a sudden flare of pain that comes from him. But then another wash of indulged arousal behind it, the reek of it so rich it’s like being clubbed across the head and sinuses. Gaon reels. Yohan’s starting to shiver right into coming, hard enough that Gaon grabs the headboard to stay upright.
“Good?” Gaon says, breathless and dizzy. Trying not to move too fast or too suddenly. “Alright? Is it good?”
Yohan’s free leg bends up reflexively and then scoots down again, heel dragging the sheet with it. His hand twists around Gaon's arm. And his cunt pulses and pulses and pulses. The grip’s suddenly too much. “Oh,” Gaon says, “I'm—”
Fuck, is he just.
It's like getting wrung out head to toe, starting with his groin and spreading down his thighs, up the muscles of his sides; his eardrums throb, and the noise of their mingled breathing fades out and in again like he’s fainting. When it returns he's making an incredibly stupid, pathetic keening though his teeth. His cock is still emptying. His balls ache, half-pleasurably. Half startlingly. Maybe it's possible to come so hard you turn yourself inside-out. Maybe it's just a hernia. “You okay?” Gaon gasps.
Yohan's turned his face to the side. His cheeks are pink. He doesn't answer right away. He's trying to suppress something, hypocrite that he is.
“Yes,” he grits out.
His scent’s like an orgy. And also like something much softer. Gaon rocks into him, pressing the knot deep and slightly up, into the place that seemed to drive him crazy last time. Yohan makes a hurt grunt, squeezes his eyes shut even harder. His hand's making a fist in the sheet. His cunt’s doing something similar; Gaon sweats and shivers in him and thinks foolishly about the ocean. One thing at the surface and another below, moving at once to make a wave.
“Can you come again?” Gaon says. Yohan pants. “I'm going to make you come again. Come on me. Let me make you come, let me make it good. I’ll make it so good.”
Yohan laughs again, just as weirdly.
Finally he looks back at Gaon, blinking like he’s opening up to a strong light; he touches Gaon’s cheek, puts a thumb between his lips, lets Gaon bite and suck it. But he doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have to. His hair can’t hide his eyes at this angle. And his body’s less silent than his mouth.
“Don't wear block at home,” Gaon says.
Yohan glances over his shoulder. Raises his eyebrows. He's pulled his joggers back on, but he's still shirtless. It's only the second time Gaon's ever seen the scarring on his back. Last time it was a shock. This time he's touched it, so he knows it isn't strange or hard or stiff; it's only skin, warm and rippling. There is something deeply beautiful about it, the pebbled texture of his healing, though Gaon probably won't ever say so. He'd get an incredulous stare, or a deserved punch. “Unless you think Elijah can…” Gaon adds.
“She can't,” Yohan says. He hesitates, and then he says, “It didn't run in that side of the family.”
“Am I…”
“The first one?” Yohan says. “No. I've met others.”
“Oh,” Gaon says.
Yohan's mouth twitches.
“You want to ask if I’ve…”
“That's none of my business,” Gaon says, automatically.
“No,” Yohan says.
“No,” Gaon repeats, slightly subdued, “or… no?”
Yohan looks extremely, extremely amused. So amused he almost smells happy. He picks his sweater off the floor.
“Interpret it how you like,” Yohan says.
“Don't,” Gaon says. “Wear it here, anymore. When it's just us.”
Yohan pulls the sweater over his head. Rakes fingers through his hair. It doesn’t really make it any neater.
“What about you?” he says.
“I won't, either,” Gaon says.
“Fair's fair,” Yohan says. “Unless you make yourself too much of a distraction.”
“Me?”
“You're constantly turned-on,” Yohan says.
“I… am not,” Gaon says, weakly. Yohan gives him a condescending look. Gaon frowns back. “Is it my fault you're…”
He gestures, vaguely. Yohan follows it with his eyes.
“Hm,” he says.
“You can sleep here,” Gaon says, like a child.
“I have something to finish,” Yohan says. “Get some rest.”
He unlocks the door.
Gaon—
It's not the same as speaking. Not the same as shaping a thought with your mouth. But theoretically you can—make any feeling clear enough, and cast it out. He hasn’t tried it since his grandmother was still living, coaxing him to learn the wordless language they alone shared in the family; his parents knew what he was, but they couldn’t teach him. Why practice throwing a ball nobody will catch? But now Gaon thinks about pressing his mouth to the back of Yohan's neck, feeling the grip of his hand. The heat of his body, his breathless laugh. The mean look in his eyes when he's thinking of destroying something, pulling it down to smash it to powder. The way he scrapes his bowl clean. The empty space in the bed. What'll be left when he's not right beside—Gaon considers it all so hard that his hands tighten in the blanket, that his sinuses prickle. Hard enough that you could feel it radiate.
Yohan pauses in the doorway. Face turned towards the lightless hall.
He inhales, and then he inhales again like he’s surprised, face tilting like he's chasing it, before he freezes and stops himself. Gaon's heart beats harder. Yohan looks back, looking like he means to say something. And then he hesitates. “You’re a quick study,” he says, maybe instead of what he’s thinking.
But then he still leaves.
Two days later, Gaon picks up a gold brick. He’s been stacking them for a few minutes, staring down the craven opportunist that K bagged for him. The creep’s good at schooling his face, and he’s kept infuriatingly calm while Gaon piled money up. Greed was making him sweat a little bit, mainly in eagerness. It wasn’t making him break.
When Gaon takes the brick off the pile, he smells it.
Huh, Gaon thinks.
“Maybe… I’ve been a little too generous,” Gaon says. He drops the gold brick back into the bag. The guy’s eyes follow it, then flick away casually. It’d be a pretty convincing act. To someone else. “I hope you’ll understand if I readjust the offer to something more reasonable.”
“You can’t buy my loyalty,” the guy sniffs. Gaon takes another gold brick off the pile. Bags it. “I’m not a turncoat,” the guy says. Gaon nods. Picks up two bricks.
The silent prickle of fear becomes a widening ribbon of it.
“I understand,” Gaon says. “If it's the principle that drives you, maybe you’ll just do the right thing for free.”
He removes another brick.
“Wait,” the guy says.
Gaon drops the brick in the bag. “I said wait!” the guy cries, jerking forward. Gaon lets his hand hover over the diminished stack.
He shouldn’t feel—pleased. Bribery and corruption are filthy things; this isn’t a victory. He’s merely rolling in the world’s dirt. Letting it stain him. But he is pleased. Undeniably so. Maybe this is a dog’s pleasure, the simplest, to slip a lead and run. Maybe Yohan’s piece-of-shit father was accidentally right: maybe they are animals. Of a certain kind. If a soul makes you beat your children, maybe it’s better to go without.
It’s possible he has a lot of things to learn.
“I’m waiting,” Gaon says.
“If you want to keep a secret,
you must also hide it from yourself.”
― George Orwell