Shotaro was looking. He wouldn’t be looking for any other reason. Eunseok asked Wonbin if he knew to which Wonbin replied, “How should I know?” Suffice to say, he knew.

Shotaro figured out when Eunseok faked a stomach virus after a long weekend of boozing and had offered, squeezing Eunseok’s bicep like an old friend, to help him keep it a secret from their boss. His preternatural ability to know everybody’s business and stay out of it for the most part was impressive — when Wonbin submerged himself into every customer’s drama, getting wet-eyed and empathetic when throngs of drunk clients told him about cheating boyfriends sending dick pics to their best friends, Shotaro soaked it all up surreptitiously, but Eunseok was different.

Eunseok worked in peace for two hours. Two hours, then deft-on-his-feet-never-clumsy Shotaro managed to spill a cocktail shaker’s worth of ice down Eunseok’s black t-shirt. Wonbin glanced over his shoulder from the other corner of the bar, nodding along to somebody’s woes while he tried to look at the recipe for an espresso martini on his phone, but didn’t react. Shotaro blurted out an apology, mostly to the client, and found Sion looking aimless to shove onto screwdriver duty.

Naturally, Eunseok refused to take his t-shirt off in the backroom.

“It’s not against policy,” he said. “Wonbin said.”

Shotaro shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“I don’t care either.” He met Shotaro’s eye, grinning and hungry. “For your information.”

“Just take off your shirt and I’ll get you a new one.”

“It’ll dry off,” Eunseok said, glancing down. Shirt on or off no longer mattered.

He looked at Shotaro. Shotaro looked down, then up at him. Shotaro’s fingers were long and delicate and quick, offering no more than one slight flick to Eunseok’s left nipple as his bracelets jingled lightly.

“They’re not healed,” Eunseok said.

“Spit is sanitary,” Shotaro laughed.

“Literally shut up,” he said, still blushing to his ears. “What? You’re going to tell me that our boss can’t find out about these?”

“No,” he said. “I wondered who it was for.”

“Not for you.”

“Obviously.”

“And not for Wonbin.”

“I never even suggested that.”

“So for myself,” he said. “Being a bartender is gay and e-sports has failed me, so I’m considering all my options.” Eunseok bit his lip but he was mainly teasing; this stuff didn’t come naturally to him. He was attractive to who he was attractive to and everyone else found him various shades of greasy, occasionally a megalomaniac, and beyond saving, even for all the candles and Divine Mercies in the Vatican. “And anyway, I’ve heard shit about you.”

“Like what?” Shotaro laughed.

“Things,” Eunseok said.

“My reputation’s squeaky-clean…” Shotaro scratched the back of his neck. “...Aren’t you the kid with pierced nipples and a habit of jerking off his coworkers for a Get Out Of Jail Free card?”

Eunseok stuck out his tongue.

“Let me see them,” Shotaro said.

“For how long?”

“One second for every minute you’ve been late to work this week.”

“Not fair,” Eunseok said. He rolled up his shirt anyway. The bars were small, simple silver, nothing gaudy or out of his realm of non-existent style, and his nipples were a little swollen from the studs. Shotaro ran his hands across Eunseok’s bony chest but refused to make contact with the piercings. Even the proximity was tender. “Ah, be careful, it’s seriously sore…And I only jerked you off because I chose to, OK?”

“Not Sion? Not Wonbin?”

“Not Wonbin because that’s sick,” Eunseok said. “And not Sion because I think we look too alike.”

“Like hot twins.”

“You are fucked up,” Eunseok said. He pushed Shotaro away just to pull his t-shirt off completely. “Seriously fucked up. Never speak to me again. I’m reporting you to the ombudsman or something. Ugh. Fifth-degree harassment.” Then he kissed him so hard their teeth knocked together and he could feel Shotaro’s smile up close. “Pervert. Hentai.”

Eunseok says: I’m incapable of it, sorry.

Of course he’s capable of love — he loves his family and his dog and his fans — but Wonbin?

Eunseok means: you’re crazy. Let’s fuck.

So Wonbin stops. For a day, then two, then a week. He practices and eats once or twice every few days, keeps up with fansigns and Weverse posts and other divinely ordained idol duties, but he can feel himself slowing down for the sake of Eunseok and waiting for him to catch up with his feelings. If he leaves the distance between them too wide, Eunseok will never get there. He stops.

Eunseok traces a love heart across the harsh notches of Wonbin’s spine afterwards. He organises Wonbin’s hair into sections to expose the sensitive areas of his scalp so he can touch him all over, then pinches his earlobes until his piercings sting.

“You’re so sexy,” Eunseok says, sucking Wonbin’s neck.

“Thought you said you were incapable of it,” Wonbin mutters.

“What did you say, beautiful?”

“Nothing,” he says.

For a while it’s the same. Wonbin lets him get away with it because he’s slowing down, drawing closer, and because this — this remaining remnant — is the rain-beaten column of a collapsed empire. But then everything ends. If Rome can end, so can this.

Shotaro says: He’s like that with everyone.

Anton says: We can get some snacks [A/N: that only one person, Anton Chanyoung Lee, will eat] and watch a film.

Sungchan says: [He could not be reached for comment on matters pertaining to Park Wonbin.]

Sohee says: Love is like LoL raids…I’m bad at them and he’s even worse.

Eunseok says: Why can’t it just be this? Sex?

Wonbin says: Don’t come near underwear or lick the shell of my ear or put your hand on my thigh in the back of the car. Don’t cum on my face if you don’t mean it. Maybe my back is OK. No, not even that. Not even something like that. It’s nothing deep for you, so it’s not for me either.

Wonbin means: you’re crazy. Let’s fuck even if it eats me up on the inside.

“He bought me an apartment.”

Eunseok rolled his eyes. “What? That’s it? You were his inappropriately young sidepiece, and all he bought you was an apartment?”

“I’m not inappropriately young. I’m an adult.”

“You really look like a slut. My husband. My husband. And all he got for you was some piddly Gangnam apartment. Did you suck him off for a balcony? Jesus, Sungchan.”

“All I’m saying,” Wonbin said, biting his lip, “is that he promised me some money, just enough to tide me over.” He touched Eunseok’s sleeve. It was true that Sungchan had excellent taste — Wonbin was coquettish and sweet, even when he was chasing a goal that Eunseok, an immovable object, wouldn’t budge on. “I’m serious.”

Wonbin’s fingers were bitten and he was wearing black.

“Beneath my trousers,” he muttered, voice frayed from cigarette smoke, “I’m…Look, I’m serious. I have bills to pay. And I really did love Sungchan, even if you find that unbelievable.”

There was no denying how Eunseok reacted to that vague threat of seduction. He was still young enough to remember that chain reaction setting off in his body for almost everything, every touch or word.

“Is that it? You’d blow me for cash?”

“Not if you react like that,” Wonbin said. “Look, just — I shouldn’t have asked. I’ll go.”

“I never said anything.” Eunseok brushed a hair behind Wonbin’s ear. “I guess we’ve both been pretty lonely.”

---

Anton pours himself all over Sungchan like golden liquid. He tanned like an American and smiled cheesily like one too. The sunlounger shifts with his weight.

“The lady over there says you can get a caipirinha for free if you give her a kiss,” Anton said.

“You’re feeling nice today,” Sungchan said.

“You can get a lot more,” Anton said, unable to stop laughing at his own bungled debauchery, “if you kiss me here,” and pointed at his own round cheek.

Life is too short to get your life ruined and your personal space annexed by one cat, so Shotaro gets two. Eunseok and Wonbin are a package deal regardless. Eunseok bites and Wonbin scratches. Wonbin howls and Eunseok meows. Eunseok talks about long-dead philosophers with a keen eye for detail and Wonbin considers the best season for pregnancy. They occasionally sleep together, tails curled around their legs, but mostly like to wedge Shotaro between their bony ankles and edgy hips. They can’t be separated for some legal reasons, but mostly moral.

Work gets beneath Shotaro’s skin most days, the inevitable slog of turning passion into profit, but the people drive him crazy: lacklustre students, unstretched hamstrings, requests for music he doesn’t approve of. Wonbin will try to cook something healthy dry for when he gets back, thinking of his heart and his head, and Eunseok will douse it in sesame dressing or oil or soy sauce until it’s palatable.

Usually. But tonight the kitchen’s empty. Ingredients are abandoned across the counter: a cucumber diced halfway, a tin of tuna, a bowl of rice left steaming.

Shotaro hears quiet voices from the bathroom and approaches the door carefully, pressing his ear against the door. He wants to eat, not to play stupid games, but after a long day those stupid prizes sound pretty good too. Anything that isn’t getting verbally wrung-out by his boss or having his dance students invent new sparkly new forms of emotional sadism.

“It hurts, Eunseokkie…”

“Don’t be such a wuss,” Eunseok mutters. “Go on, move, let me at it.”

A tap runs on and off.

Wonbin yelps. “Be careful! Why don’t you let me cut your nails?”

“I am being careful,” he says. “And I don’t let you do that because you think ‘cutting’ them means chewing them in your mouth.”

“Ow, ow, ow!”

“Stop being such a crybaby.”

Shotaro opens the door then. Eunseok has a habit of not playing nice, but Wonbin is also sensitive. “What are you…”

Eunseok is wrapping a bandage around Wonbin’s finger. Both of their tails are thrashing angrily. Wonbin’s sweatpants are curled in the corner and his legs are long and pale, swinging back and forth as he sits on the edge of the tiny bathtub.

“Don’t be so mean,” Shotaro says, “to Wonbin…Ah…”

“I got blood on my sweatpants,” Wonbin complains.

“They’re mine,” Eunseok says. “Wonbinnie is so stupid, Taro.”

Wonbin blinks up at Shotaro. He turns his head to the side, all the while letting Eunseok frustratedly bandage his finger, and opens his legs with the unexpected coquettish impulses only Wonbin possesses. Eunseok, on the right evening and with the right treatment and with Wonbin by his side, acts like a real seductress, but that’s hard to gauge. Wonbin is always on it, flickering and buzzing with erotic energy.

Eunseok shoves his thigh between Wonbin’s knees. “He’s not wearing underwear; you can’t look.”

“It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before,” Wonbin says, wrinkling his nose.

“Ah.”

“And I’m not done fixing you,” says Eunseok.

“Taro, I missed you…” Wonbin blinks slowly. “I’m all ready for you…”

“Gross,” Eunseok says half-heartedly. He drops Wonbin’s hand. “Alright. Whatever. I’m hungry anyway. You guys have your fun.”

Wonbin paws at Eunseok too. “Eunseokkie, you think I’m gross?”

“Tell him he’s not gross,” Shotaro says.

Eunseok rolls his eyes. “He is gross.”

“For me?”

“Fine,” Eunseok says. “Wonbinnie is so pretty and cute and everybody in the whole world needs to hear about what’s in-between his thighs.”

“Exactly,” Shotaro agrees.

“Ugh!”

Eunseok chose the place, so naturally it was sleaziness embodied: the twinkling plastic chandeliers, champagne flutes with residual specks of glitter, bargain-bucket prices for the newbies. Rookie hosts got a bad rap for being awkward and belligerent, unable to sell themselves, but made up for it in occasional bursts of enthusiasm and ingenue-like fits of laughter. They didn’t make themselves puke after each customer and so got, as expected, exceedingly drunk within a matter of clients. The vinyl surface of the booths was peeling and the glasses had soapy residue from where they’d been haphazardly scrubbed.

At least Eunseok didn’t take him to a maid café. Sungchan felt Eunseok, who was really just as skinny as the hosts surrounding them and probably blessed with a better face, pinch his arm.

“You need to relax,” Eunseok said, not looking particularly relaxed himself. “So what? Wonbin knows what stag parties are all about. He’s not dumb.”

Sungchan swallowed. “I mean, sure. You don’t actually hook up with hosts.”

“And nobody can take pictures of you, so don’t think you’re going to wake up on the front cover of Dispatch.”

“Yeah, mm-hm.”

“Nobody cares about you in Japan if you don’t make the Oricon.”

“I did —”

“Yeah, but you’re not Tohoshinki, are you?”

Sungchan pinched him back. “You should apply for a job here,” he said. A girl with thin arms seated them and presented them with a drinks menu. Eunseok whispered something to her. “No, Eunseokkie, I’m serious. You’d be a perfect fit. You can get your fill of Japanese bisexuals.”

“I don’t like bisexuals. I told you that,” Eunseok said, slumping down next to him, “I’m half straight, half gay. You should know that. Anyway, seriously, stop thinking about Wonbin. You think he’s not getting his kicks in with Shotaro right now? He’s having a great time getting his throat tickled and you’re scared to look at some hosts. Jesus.”

“Shut up,” Sungchan laughed.

“I got you the crossdresser,” Eunseok said.

A stormy-looking guy, black-haired and faintly resembling Wonbin in a way that set off a chain reaction of defensiveness and attachment in Sungchan’s gut, sat down across from them and set his face in his hands. His makeup was non-existent. His pantyhose were torn from where he bumped into a table corner.

“Firstly,” he said, soft-spoken, “if you had told me you were coming with…Um…” He glanced at Sungchan. “...You would be in VIP. So think on that.”

“VIP’s no fun,” Eunseok said, waving him off. “Let’s get champagne.”

“What’s your name?” Sungchan asked.

“Anton,” he said, lilting and American, “but — look, Eunseok-hyung thinks he’s funny and he’s not. This is embarrassing for me.” He hid his face. “I used to have a huge crush on you in high school…”

“And now you’re…?”

“I don’t walk around Shibuya looking like this,” he tried.

Over champagne, which Eunseok was gracious enough to make Sungchan buy, Anton’s face grew more and more red. When he brushed his hair out of his eyes, he didn’t look like Wonbin at all. He was more impish, cheeky. His mouth pouted like Wonbin’s but the rest of the differences were superfluous. He slid his stockinged foot over Sungchan’s knee but it was clumsy, inconsidered. For a second it was innocent, Sungchan supposed, but then Anton — who professed to be business-first — was scrambling for his shoes and his lighter to take a breather outside. In company, of course.

His skirt was flimsy, but Sungchan kind of liked how rough around the edges he was. Indelicate, easy, cute. He pinched Anton’s cheek and was brushed off half-heartedly. Anton lit his cigarette like a good host and Eunseok smoked. Anton found himself adjusted between the two of them, Eunseok blowing smoke away from his face.

“I’ll probably go back to America,” Anton said. “I was tired of it, so I moved. But now I think I’m tired of this too.”

Sungchan stroked his hair. “Come to Korea.”

“Aren’t you getting married?” Anton asked simply.

Eunseok laughed so hard he had to remove the cigarette between his lips.

“I’m not going to be the other woman,” he said.

“No, you’re the other other woman. I’m the other woman,” Eunseok said. “Get in line, squirt.”

Sungchan kissed Anton’s forehead. “No, I’ll take care of you,” he said. “I’ll put you in an apartment wherever you like — very cute, chic, a nice area — and you can come and go whenever you please, get dinner with me now and again, live well…Wonbin wouldn’t know.”

Eunseok kissed Anton’s cheek. “He’s drunk,” he laughed. “His fiancé would find you out anyway. Nose of a bloodhound. But you can be my —”

Wonbin’s not even his secretary. He’s got his own water fountain and is regularly pumped full of low-fat cappuccinos, so his direct superior clearly wants to make a show of him amongst all the trashy, first-floor types. His hair is elegant and his fingers are long and he’s a disgustingly attractive kind of person for all those reasons. Offensively beautiful but works hard.

Today he’s constantly up, walking past the glass door of Eunseok’s office, always with a file in his hand or, in one case, a neatly-wrapped Christmas gift. His perpetual motion gives little opportunity to see what he’s wearing or that face of his. Eunseok asked if he slept badly once, on account of that first-rate pout, but all he’d received was a quiet No, not quite. His formality is castratory; there’s no greater rejection than that of Park Wonbin.

For a moment he stops by the door of Eunseok’s office. He pauses before knocking, shuffling his dress shoes.

“Come in,” Eunseok says.

Wonbin admits himself with his usual dollish clemency, his shoulders tight and expression poised but imperfect.

“I wondered if you,” Wonbin says, standing in-between the hallway and Eunseok’s office with a delicate hand resting on the doorframe, “would be interested in helping decorate the tree.”

Eunseok glances down at his desk, but not for long. Wonbin looks the same but different. All his features are still there, glossy and big, but his body is poorly obscured by the gauzy fabric of his shirt. It’s so sheer that you might touch it and the sensation would not be filtered at all, as if you were touching the skin itself, or in fact it would cause an even greater shiver from its coolness and delicate texture. His arms are a little more opaque, conversely leaving his chest most exposed at all. Even his nipples are pink, quite small…

“Eunseok-ssi, the tree?”

“Were you wearing a jacket earlier?”

Wonbin nods. “I’ve got all the decorations beneath my desk, so,” he says, thumbing the door frame again. Wonbin’s nipples. So fucking cute. Just adorable. And when else is Eunseok ever going to get a chance to see them again? Somehow turning the heating off and watching them grow hard seems like the best and worst plan he can come up with. It feels wrong to play God like that — besides, he’ll probably just put the jacket back on. “I would ask Sohee-ssi, but I did it with him last year and he has such difficulty getting it up.”

“…Right.”

Wonbin smiles politely, bites his lip.

“Where did you get your blouse from?”

“I’m not sure it would suit you,” Wonbin says.

Eunseok, given half a chance, would suck on his nipples until he cried and begged him to touch him all over, elsewhere, because that he was so sensitive there, Eunseok, and to have some mercy. It would be so intense that Wonbin would make these heaving great moans, throaty with tears also, and hold Eunseok’s head down on the right spot until Wonbin came in his work trousers.

“OK,” Eunseok says. “That's all?”

“I think so,” Wonbin says.

“You see that little switch there for the blinds?” Eunseok says, not standing up too tall. “Can you just turn that on as you leave?”

“No problem, sir.” Wonbin turns around and adds, “Come quickly, the tree won’t put up itself.”

Bunnies aren’t allowed in Eunseok’s house. Wonbin is barely allowed and she’s a cat, long-clawed and with a tendency to scratch up any furniture provided. The last bunny she knew, who’d on first glance appeared sort of squirrely and harmless, was Oh Sion. Post-orgasm, she’d crawled out from beneath the sheetless bed and surreptitiously chewed on the wire of Eunseok’s mouse.

Sungchan kisses her on Eunseok’s doorstep regardless, one hand resting against the door while her ears twitch.

The intention is obvious and not cute. Rules are drawn for a reason. If Eunseok let Wonbin over all the time, there would be no tuna left in her cupboard or a bed left to sleep on. Her nature is thus, which Eunseok has no problem with, and Sungchan’s nature is in perpetual doubt due to the wire-nibbling habits of her prolifically gifted species.

“Next time,” Eunseok says, breaking away from the kiss. Sungchan’s nose twitches. “Yeah?”

“Are you breaking up with me?”

“What? Are we…”

“No, but you’re breaking up from dating me.”

“Is that possible?”

Sungchan shrugs. Eunseok didn’t realise bunnies had the concept of dating within their semantic field — isn’t it just rutting and constant attempts at making babies? Oh Sion gave off perpetual mixed signals of that nature: we’re so cute together, the perfect couple, impregnate me or I’ll impregnate you, OK~? But then the haze wore off and she swore to make cabbits with Wonbin instead.

Sungchan kisses Eunseok’s forehead. “I get it,” she sighs. “I’ll go forever. It’s OK. If you see me on campus, don’t take pity on me.”

Her eyes look so big they’re plain stupid, watery with this coquettish insistence. Eunseok pauses.

“Maybe…” Eunseok sighs. “Do you promise not to eat anything? Like, pinky swear?”

Sungchan grins, two front teeth shining, and says, “Of course! Anything for the mother of my future children.”

Eunseok will swear off bunnies for life another day. Sungchan pinches her thigh when Eunseok opens the door. Eunseok’s tail wraps around Sungchan’s wrist, lifting up her own skirt. Another day. Another day.

In the morning, Sungchan has chewed a love heart into Eunseok’s wooden bedpost.

“Don’t move your head,” Sungchan says, pinching Anton’s earlobe. Eunseok lets Sungchan get away with it, mostly out of neutral indifference or camaraderie, and Wonbin would probably rather go deaf than let him near him and his thousand-dollar earrings, but Anton is an unhappy medium — he tolerates it but wriggles, feels awkward, and dislikes having his head on Sungchan’s lap even if there’s a pillow to maintain appropriate dongsaeng-hyung relations.

“I’m not moving my head,” Anton complains.

“Chanyoungie, you’re moving your head.”

“I’m literally not,” he says.

Sungchan runs the wooden stick down Anton’s cheek. When he shivers, all Sungchan says is, “There you go, moving again.”

The pressure in his ear is strange, but Sungchan’s been insistent about mother-ducking since at least April. That was when, for a multitude of reasons but altogether basically no reason at all, he started to touch Anton’s all over and inspect him for perceived areas needing correction: combing out knots with his fingers, adjusting his hoodie strings, pointing out gaps where he shaved unevenly.

For some people, three years is a blip. For Sungchan, three years is a gulf.

The wooden pick massages the inside of his ear, a half-baked orgasm, and his face gets pressed against the surface of the pillow. He doesn’t want Sungchan to violate his eardrum, so Anton does as he’s told. He touches a spot that makes Anton wrench and curl his toes and bugs it, continuing to irritate that sensitive area until he’s satisfied. Anton tries to speak but finds it impossible — it’s easier to let Sungchan please himself these days, acting out bizarre fantasies of rearing Anton, so he relaxes into it. And Shotaro would never offer this, even if he plays the part of the good brother.

Sungchan pets his freshly-dyed hair. “Will you let me wash you next?”