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Choi San and Jung Wooyoung's relationship had been stuck in limbo for two years. Frozen in time, subjugated under the weight of words trapped in their throats that neither dared to utter. Or maybe they did. It may be that routine had turned the flame of passion into rubble under the weight of exhaustion, of neglected events, of late-night calls and hurried escapes from work... Or perhaps it wasn't daring that was the problem, but a lack of motivation; the abandonment of what once promised to be a safe space to turn to, a place to flourish.
San was clear about why everything had fallen apart. Wooyoung had taken their relationship for granted, assuming that San's love was unconditional and would always be there when he turned around. But halfway through, the older of the two stopped trying to be seen, to be a priority for someone who had relegated him to the same place as a miserable sofa. Part of the furniture. Something that waits for you without expecting anything from you. Why a sofa? Because it's comfortable, comforting; something to turn to when you need to disconnect, but not important enough to be a true cradle of rest; like a bed, irrevocably part of a more intimate concept. It might seem like a silly comparison, but to San it made perfect sense. And, fuck, it hurt to be a fucking couch for Wooyoung.
Wooyoung, on the other hand, also knew why their relationship had stopped working: it had become functional; it existed within predictable patterns that forced being, feeling, and emotion. And Wooyoung, who had always felt free with San, no longer felt free in any sense of their relationship. He bought flowers for San every Friday because he knew San wanted them, not because he was excited to give them to him; because not bringing them meant an argument told through looks, one of many. San had turned passion into routine and spontaneity into a myth so distant that it seemed as if it had never existed in the first place. It was as if, through deafening silences, he had instilled in Wooyoung the manual for the perfect husband. As if what he could offer him from his own heart was never enough. Did he pick San up from the gym and take him to dinner at his favorite restaurant as a surprise? It didn't matter, because two days earlier San had wanted to go to the movies, but Wooyoung didn't feel like going out at that moment. If it didn't fit into the dynamic that San had established, it wasn't enough. Wooyoung would never be enough for San.
As in any relationship, they were both right and neither of them was right at the same time. That's why they were both sitting in their new therapist's office. A week earlier, Wooyoung had sent San a link to the psychologist's Google reviews via text message, after another one of their silent arguments. Nothing had happened in the eyes of others, but everything had happened— they hadn't shouted, but they hadn't looked at each other either. They hadn't disrespected each other, but they had hardly spoken. It was as if it wasn't worth breaking the false illusion of the perfect marriage in order to fix it.
After reading a total of sixty-three reviews from start to finish, San took the initiative and made an appointment. He informed Wooyoung immediately, sending him a screenshot of the confirmation email. Wooyoung sighed. Sometimes he fantasized that decisions were truly unilateral so that he would have a reason to cling to and be able to start a real discussion. One woven with words and not distant looks and gestures. But the truth was that San never gave him a specific reason to explode. It was a slow flame that burned them, not a sudden fire. San had made the appointment without consulting him, but it had also been him who had sent the link without even talking to San first about whether they wanted to go to therapy; it was a strange joint decision for two people who didn't talk outside their pre-established routine script.
San thought he should be happy; after all, Wooyoung wanted to change something about the unhealthy dynamic they were stuck in. He seemed to understand that there was a problem and had sought a solution. But he wasn't. They hadn't sought a solution together; Wooyoung was five steps ahead, and he could only follow; that was their dynamic: he was the one that would always end up adapting.
A week later, both men were in the office of Dr. Kim Haewon, a calm-looking woman who appeared to be about forty-five years old. Wooyoung had been reassured by her kind gaze when he came across her profile on that website recommending psychologists in Seoul. Her office was the perfect blend of a Pinterest board featuring Scandinavian decor—with warm wood tones dominating the space—and a psychology textbook on the influence of nature on mental health. The scent of at least fifteen decorative plants inviting relaxation was evident in the air. Wooyoung thought that he would have killed at least twelve of them. Wooyoung had never been good with plants. His mind was always in eighty different places, so he couldn't remember when to water them or where in the house they would be best kept depending on the type of plant; that is, assuming he didn't disappear from home for a week and come back with the stabbing pain of his shoulder injury flaring up again after a bad fall while chasing a drug dealer.
San had always been good with plants, especially considering that his childhood dream had been to become a florist. He never knew exactly when his dream of creating beautiful floral arrangements was replaced by having to say goodbye to two of his favorite suits because he couldn't get the blood out of the fabric or because of scratches that he never had time to take to the tailor to get repaired. Fortunately, that didn't last long, as the agency he worked for was faced with complaints from all its agents and began to provide appropriate clothing for undercover missions.
“How did you decide to come for couples therapy?” That was the first question their therapist asked them.
“It was a mutual decision,” Wooyoung replied quickly.
San snorted.
Wooyoung raised an eyebrow, tilting his head to observe his husband's incredulous reaction.
“San, would you like to comment on that?”
“It's nothing, I just find it curious that this could be considered a mutual decision.”
“What do you mean?” Wooyoung and the therapist asked at the same time.
“We had never discussed his interest in going to couples therapy. One day he just sent me the link to your office.”
Wooyoung bit his lower lip, trying to contain the torrent of words threatening to pour out of his mouth. It was a gesture that had become a habit during the last few years of their marriage.
The therapist looked closely at San, then at Wooyoung. In a soft voice, she added, “And why do you consider it a mutual decision, Wooyoung?”
“I sent the link, but he made the appointment without saying a word.”
San turned his whole body toward his husband, raising an eyebrow. “What else did you want me to do? You didn't even bother to ask me what I thought of the idea first.”
“I don't know, maybe tell me what you thought before making an appointment?”
“Or maybe you could have told me you were interested in couples therapy before sending me a link without saying anything else.”
The therapist wrote something down in her notebook, and Wooyoung felt uncomfortable. The room, so carefully decorated to provide comfort, now seemed like a pretty prison whose perfection made him feel judged. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“A mutual decision, indeed. The first half was on me, and the second half was on you.”
San let out a laugh. His husband recognized that laugh perfectly— short, rehearsed, and deep, very different from the high-pitched laugh that came from his heart. This was a laugh filled with frustration, a mask similar to his spouse's lip-biting: it was a way to avoid yelling at Wooyoung that he was an asshole. Polite, cold, calculated. Just another way to make their relationship look perfect to outsiders, but the therapist's gaze seemed to see through the lie.
“Although logically it may seem like a joint decision... I don't think either of you feels that way, is that right?”
The silence after Haewon's question spoke for itself.
“Well, with that in mind, I have to ask you the following: Do you want to be here and start therapy together?”
The couple looked at each other. It was as if they were searching for something in each other's eyes, without being quite sure what; perhaps a sign that this wasn't a good idea, or perhaps embers of what was once a burning flame that they both thought would be unstoppable. Whatever it was they were looking for, it seemed that they both found it.
“Yes,” their voices sounded in unison.
The therapist nodded, returning to her notebook.
“All right. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to learn a little more about your history. How did you meet?”
7 years ago .
It was a hot summer afternoon like any other, except that San was in a place far removed from Seoul, where the agent usually spent his summer afternoons.
The atmosphere was charged with excitement. The sun caressed the young man's tanned skin, allowing the drops that had clung to him after his last swim in the sea to disappear completely. In his hand, the ice cream he had bought to combat the suffocating heat had left a trail of minty flavor that slowly dripped down his finger. He licked it off, hissing as the ice cream dripped onto the tip of his nose. He wiped himself as best he could, trying to finish as quickly as possible so he could get back into the water and stop feeling so sticky. Sweat now clung uncomfortably to his skin in a thin layer, and he could feel his cheeks burning from the sun.
The cries of children playing paddleball on the shore and those of mothers telling their little ones not to swim too far out were the soundtrack that the Korean man now recognized as native to the place. The waves accompanied the dissonant melody with the sound of their ebb and flow, inviting the seagulls to join in their song. A group of teenagers sitting on their towels laughed loudly as they played a card game that San couldn't recognize.
Visually, that beach in southern Spain was an endless array of colors. If you looked at it from above, it probably looked like a pop art painting with the number of colored circles decorating the sand thanks to the cluster of beach umbrellas that took over the place. All this was accompanied by an overwhelming number of towels that almost overlapped each other. That's how San realized he had chosen the busiest beach in all of Cadiz to spend his day: La Caleta.
“¿Nos pasas la pelota?” A young man of about nineteen asked him in Spanish if he could bring him the small ball that had fallen at the agent's feet.
“Si me dejas jugar una partida, claro,” he replied, also in Spanish. He had told him he would, if they let him play a game. Why not? He had been watching the group of boys playing paddle tennis for a while and had felt like playing too.
After a game that did little for his ego, given that the teenager beat him hands down, the Korean decided that his day at the beach had been enough. So, with his cheeks and shoulders burnt by the sun and his pride wounded by a boy five years his junior, San returned to his hotel.
A few hours later, the young agent was ending the day with a beer and the sound of the locals enjoying a Friday night in the city's main market. While some were having dinner at the different stalls, other groups were already enjoying beers after dinner, perhaps preparing their bodies for a night out.
San watched the scene with a certain admiration; there, in Cádiz, people seemed so genuine. They laughed loudly, hugged each other even more tightly, if that were possible, and always greeted each other effusively, as if they hadn't seen each other in centuries, even though they might have met that very morning while buying bread. This was something the Korean had learned from the Spanish people on his various business trips; but at that moment, watching them from his break, on vacation, he could appreciate the genuineness of each gesture. He had decided to spend a couple of days in Cadiz after notifying his bosses of the death of a certain arms dealer in Marbella, a city rotten with luxury that was a couple of hours away, and receiving thirty grand in his bank account. He had no jobs lined up, so he took the opportunity to find a destination with good beaches and disappear for a few days.
Somewhat lost in thought, the young man was startled when he felt something cold fall on his bare arm. Startled, he turned to his left, finding a man who appeared to be his age holding a half-empty beer mug and looking embarrassed and panicked. “Oh, shit, I'm so sorry,” the stranger apologized in English. As expected, the other half of the beer hadn't disappeared by magic, but was sliding down his own arm.
San wrinkled his nose, trying to reach for a napkin, but the stranger's hand beat him to it, grabbing some paper to wipe his arm insistently. “I'm sorry, really. I'm sorry...” San found the insistence somewhat endearing, noticing his own interest growing. Not only because of the beer thrower's friendly attitude, but also because of the features of the person accompanying him.
A defined, slim figure with a collarbone that caught San's attention was visible through the fabric of the shirt, with the top buttons undone. The sun-kissed skin contrasted beautifully with the white color of his shirt, whose rolled-up sleeves revealed an arm with prominent veins. A very attractive feature, if you asked San for his opinion on the matter. Equally attractive were his hands, which were then clumsily wiping San's biceps with the napkins they had found, as he watched the scene unfold with some amusement and curiosity.
“Don't worry, it's okay,” San replied with a small smile on his face.
The man looked up, his fingertips still grazing the lower part of his biceps. It was his gaze that captivated the agent the most. His uneven eyes scanned every part of his own face with curiosity and boldness; San liked the transparency of his intentions. He liked it almost as much as he liked the two moles that fate seemed to have deliberately painted on his face so that San's gaze would be drawn to them as if they were magnets: one adorable one under his left eye, the larger of the two, helping to make his features appear softer and more delicate; the other on his full lower lip. A sharp jawline and prominent cheekbones completed what San thought was one of the most attractive faces he had ever seen. The icing on the cake were the dimples that appeared when he smiled at him.
At that moment, San knew that this vacation would be one to remember.
“Don't worry, really. It's okay...” San tested the waters in English, but the features of the man in front of him reminded him too much of home not to try. “이름이 뭐예요?” He decided to venture asking his name in Korean.
“Wooyoung,” replied the handsome stranger, accompanying his introduction with a cordial bow.
“San,” replied the agent, letting his own dimples show as he smiled at Wooyoung, bowing in greeting as well.
However, the now not-so-strange Wooyoung did not miss the opportunity to extend his hand to shake San's, letting his long fingers wrap around it. “What is a Korean doing so far from home?”
“Let's just say I like to try out the beaches of every country I travel to, if possible. I could ask you the same question.”
The attractive stranger gave him another smile. “A business trip brought me here, and today is one of my few free nights.”
San nodded, pointing with a tilt of his head to the empty seat next to him. “Well, if no one's waiting for you, you have a free seat over here.”
Wooyoung studied the man in front of him with his eyes. He was tired; it had been an exhausting day. He had traveled to Spain to keep an eye on a drug trafficker based in Sotogrande, near Cadiz, so that he could find the perfect moment to send a photo of his decapitated head to his boss and return to Korea to sleep for a month. He had done so just four hours earlier, and perhaps the most sensible thing he could do at that moment was to return to the hotel to rest so that tomorrow he could drive to Jerez well-rested and face his “too many hours of flying with two layovers” with a little more strength in his body. But the reality was that the almost cat-like eyes that studied his features with a certain boldness were mesmerizing. It didn't help that San had an aura of magnetism framed by those biceps encased in a black short-sleeved compression shirt and that dimpled smile that invited him to sit next to him.
The young agent bit his lip, pretending to consider the proposal. “Maybe... But only if you let me buy you the next beer to apologize for the mess I've made.”
San smiled and nodded. “Okay, but just one, because with my tolerance, if you wanted to buy me two, you'd have to carry me back to my hotel. And it's not exactly close.”
Raising an eyebrow in amusement, Wooyoung pulled out the empty chair so he could sit down. "Now you make me want to invite you to more. It's funny how big guys turn soft after two drinks; it's like it's your kryptonite," the way his eyes wandered over the pecs and biceps of the man in front of him was anything but subtle. But that wasn't the intention either. And San liked that.
“Are you calling me Superman?” San flirted, resting his elbow on the table and then letting his chin rest on his hand, leaning slightly toward Wooyoung.
“Would you rather I call you something else? Anything in mind?”
“Surprise me.”
Wooyoung's smile was accompanied by his hand raising his beer mug and tilting it toward his companion, seeking to toast together. As he did so, he spoke again. “I accept the challenge, if you surprise me first.”
No other words needed to be exchanged between them on the matter for both to know where they stood.
A couple of beers and countless laughs later, their fingers intertwined under the moonlight that illuminated the streets of Cadiz with a certain air of romance.
“I can't believe it! Is that scar really your father's fault?” Wooyoung approached San with a curious look on his face, examining the small patch of pale skin at the hairline, crossing slightly over his forehead.
San nodded with a small drunken laugh escaping his lips. “And now I'll have a permanent bald spot because of the man who gave me life,” he said, putting a hand to his heart, pretending to be hurt.
“Oh, no, how could he not have thought it would damage your attractiveness for life?”
“Hey! I'm still attractive,” an adorable pout formed on the older of the two men's lips as he sat down on the sand of the deserted beach.
“Hm, I don't know. I think I'd have to assess that better... Let's see, prove it,” the young man smiled with a hint of mockery, but tinged with a recent affection for the stranger from his homeland. “Show me what you've got.”
San couldn't help but take advantage of the situation; sitting on the sand, still warm after a day of intense sun, he feigned discomfort and let out a groan. He looked down at his bare foot, as they had both taken off their shoes to walk along the beach under the moonlight. He hissed. “Fuck, I think I cut myself on something,” he hoped that the dim light bathing them would give rise to doubt and that his performance would be successful. He almost smiled triumphantly when he saw Wooyoung lean toward him with his hands trying to inspect his foot. Then, the agent stretched out his arm to grab the attractive ‘no longer so unknown’ Wooyoung and take advantage of his distraction to, in a simple and secure hold, throw him to the ground and trap him under his body.
Wooyoung felt his heart race and had to use all his mental strength not to knock San out right then and there. “He's a civilian, Wooyoung, and half of South Korea has done some kind of martial art; calm down, read his intentions,” he told himself mentally. The intentions were more than clear when he found himself trapped. Trapped in a way he had rarely been before; between the warmth of the sand, the smell of saltpeter mixed with San's vanilla and woody perfume, and the man's feline gaze a few inches from him, inspecting his own face as if it were something to admire. He couldn't help but wet his lips when he felt San's gaze linger on them a few seconds longer than usual.
“Is your appeal playing the tough guy?” He dared to let his fingertips brush against San's sides over the thin fabric of his T-shirt. “I don't know if that makes up for the receding hairline you have here,” he pointed to the scar on his forehead.
“I can be gentle if that's more to your liking,” San's voice deepened, almost becoming a whisper.
In response, the man beneath him gave him a knowing smile. “I see you're observant, because I do find a big guy with...” his gaze fixed on his defined pecs, “...a dolocile heart attractive.”
A wink.
San couldn't help but bite his lower lip, tempted to break the rules of the game they seemed to be playing and move closer to Wooyoung's lips to claim them as his own.
“Attractive enough to make you forget about a little bald spot?”
“Hm...” Wooyoung pretended to think about it, letting his fingers play with the defined lines of the man's biceps above him. “I don't know. Are you going to spin me around in the air again?”
He hadn't completely let his guard down yet. The lock had aroused a certain curiosity in him and alerted his senses.
San's expression changed completely, shifting from seduction and desire to concern. He shouldn't have hurt him at all, but it was true that he hadn't considered that the surprise might not have been pleasant. “I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have done that... I wanted to impress you and I got carried away and...”
Wooyoung couldn't help but fall for the little pout on his lips with every word he uttered by way of apology. This San guy was going to be a problem; he couldn't be so adorable and damn attractive at the same time.
“It's okay, really, I was just surprised,” he tried to break the ice. You never knew if the person in front of you was a hidden threat. “Do you practice any martial arts?”
“No, God, not anymore. I'm too old...” San laughed, still concerned about Wooyoung. “I used to do judo until I was a teenager. But that's not okay, no matter how much I wanted to impress you.”
Wooyoung felt an invisible weight lift from his chest. It wasn't that he could trust him one hundred percent... but he didn't have many more reasons to distrust him either. With his manual exploration camouflaged in an intimate moment, he had already been able to verify that he wasn't carrying any weapons. Maybe a microphone... but he planned to check that later, perhaps with the help of his tongue wandering over that sun-kissed skin.
“You wanted to show off, huh?”
San's cheeks, already red from sunburn, turned an even deeper shade of red. “Did it work?”
Wooyoung moistened his lower lip again with the tip of his tongue, this time taking his time; he did it slowly, savoring how San's gaze was once again flooded with hunger and lust with just a simple gesture. And the power he had over the man above him made him smile.
“Why don't you check it out?” he challenged him.
San needed no further invitation to do what he had wanted to do for hours: kiss the adorable mole that sat on the full lips of the most intriguing man he had ever met.
The moment their lips met for the first time, both men knew it would be difficult to forget the addiction that threatened to trap them in its web. The taste of the cherry candies they had shared moments before mingled with the bitterness of beer at the back of their palates, crowned by a warm invasion that fiercely dominated the kiss. A kiss that could only be summed up in one word: longing; a desire for more, to know, to explore, and to explode.
Wooyoung's hands had already memorized the contours of the man's body above him, but he wanted—no, he needed more. He reached between his locks, fueling his boldness with San's moan that his lips stifled; he grabbed a few strands and pulled them gently, growling when San's fingers left white marks on his waist from the way he squeezed in response. That only seemed to motivate San more, who tilted his head to deepen the kiss, drinking in each and every one of Wooyoung's moans as if he were a thirsty man. He bit his full lower lip, taking and taking until Wooyoung felt dizzy, bound hand and foot.
The younger of the two pulled away, leaving a few inches between them. His gaze was distracted by San's lips, swollen and shiny from the saliva of the recent kiss. Wooyoung took a couple of deep breaths before speaking, clearly affected by the moment.
“Just so you know, you only think you've lead the kiss because we're in public,” he clarified in a hoarse voice.
“You say so?”
“Hm,” Wooyoung nodded, letting his thumb slide across the lower lip of the no longer so unfamiliar San. “You always have to keep an ace up your sleeve... It's not good to reveal all your secrets so soon.”
There were many secrets that remained undisclosed for years. But the kisses were not one of them: their lips told silent stories in moist caresses for what seemed like hours. Neither of them wanted to say goodbye to the night, let alone to each other's warmth. So they were surprised to find themselves at the door of the beachfront hotel that awaited them: both men were staying at the same hotel. What came as no surprise to either of them was that they were also sharing a room that night.
7 years later.
The clock struck seven. Routine returned to its sacred place in the couple's life. Wooyoung finished dinner while San set the table and poured two glasses of wine. It was as if the visit to the therapist's office had never happened. It wasn't that they expected a single session to solve their problems, but they hadn't expected to return feeling so... indifferent.
“What did you think of the therapist?” It was Wooyoung who broke the uncomfortable silence that had become a hallmark of their marriage.
San looked at his hands for a few seconds. Inside, a battle raged between his heart—which wanted to say that he wanted to keep trying, that he wanted to understand why they were drifting apart—and his pride—which observed Wooyoung's indifference and wanted to make him see that he wasn't going to beg for his attention. To no one's surprise, his pride won.
“I don't know... Everything was very predictable.”
Wooyoung nodded. It was easier to agree with San than to break whatever pattern the other had invented for the situation. Deviating from the script could mean returning to that cold silence so lonely in each other's company. The younger of the two couldn't afford another silent argument, because his heart was begging him to grab San and shake him until he understood his fierce fear of losing him.
Silence presided over dinner that night, as if it were just another night like so many others.
Already in bed, Wooyoung pretended to read while San slept peacefully beside him. The agent sighed, trying to shake off the invisible weight that had settled in his chest since they left the therapist's office. Thousands of thoughts fought for attention in his anxious mind. Wooyoung knew he wasn't perfect and that he had also made mistakes in his marriage, but he was trying. Damn right he was trying. He had lost count of the times he had tried to change every little thing he could think of that might be the problem: his routines, his gestures, his gifts, his words... At the end of the day, it seemed that the problem was simply him. His existence. And that terrified him deeply: not being enough for San, no matter how hard he tried. Not being what San wanted—who San needed.
The younger of the two let his gaze rest on his husband, who was resting beside him. He couldn't help but let a melancholy smile appear on his lips. Hugging the pillow and with a small pout on his lips barely visible, except for the soft outline drawn by the dim light in the room. His calm breathing made him seem younger, more carefree. Wooyoung couldn't even remember the last time he had felt his husband like this without him being asleep. Did he make him so unhappy that San couldn't let his guard down around him, couldn't feel vulnerable? The thought made the young man's chest tighten. At times like this, he felt like he could never run fast enough to catch up with San, who was miles away from him even though Wooyoung only had to reach out a few inches to caress the bare skin of his back. So close and yet so damn far away.
He turned off the bedside lamp and put the book he was pretending to read aside. Sometimes he wondered how long it would take San to walk through the door with the divorce papers ready for Wooyoung to sign. The worst part was that he knew it wouldn't come as a surprise, and that he probably deserved it. Because he had never been honest with the love of his life, and San didn't deserve to have someone full of lies in his life, let alone in his heart. A relationship built on deception, elaborate lies, cover-ups, and the pain of not being able to be, to be in all his glory, with the person he loved. San didn't deserve any of that. But what could Wooyoung do? Say, “Hey, jagiya, I know I told you I was the CEO of a tech company, but it turns out it's just a cover. What's helped us pay the mortgage is more than a hundred corpses behind me... What do you want for dinner? I made kimchi”? That wasn't an option.
On the other side of the bed, San pretended to be asleep. He counted in his head the minutes it would take his husband to fall asleep so he could go out and lie once again. That afternoon, on his way to the therapist's office, he had received a notification about a job for that night. It wasn't a problem for San to stay awake until then, especially that day, since there was only one thing on his mind: Wooyoung.
Sometimes, the agent wondered if everything he was convinced was the foundation of his marriage problems was an illusion. Or rather, a sweet lie he had told himself so he wouldn't have to live with the weight of the harsh reality: since he had met the love of his life, he had lied to him about absolutely everything except one thing— that he had fallen in love with him so quickly and so deeply that it scared him. His infectious laugh; the way his prominent dimples appeared every time San did something silly just to hear him laugh; the fact that he made his favorite dinner every Friday because he knew it made San happy; the honesty with which he had opened up from the very beginning... And San had only pretended to do so.
Every lie he told to justify a supposed business trip that was actually a mission in America, Europe, or wherever... every lie weighed heavier on San's heart. Maybe Wooyoung was just distancing himself to protect himself from the walls San had built between them. Walls to protect Wooyoung from the dangers of his work; walls to protect himself from the pain of lying to him.
San convinced himself that this wasn't the case. That he was trying, that he was trying to be there, that Wooyoung could see him. But perhaps being seen was what terrified him the most.
In any case, an hour later, duty was calling, and San was on his way to his agency.
When he arrived, Mingi greeted him with a hot coffee in hand and a mission report.
“Are you okay?” His friend asked with concern.
San shrugged.
“Did you have an argument with Wooyoung?”
“I don't argue with Wooyoung.” It wasn't a lie. But it wasn't the truth either.
Mingi decided not to press the issue. He pointed to the document San now held in his hands, looking for a specific paragraph. “You have an hour and a half to get to the mission location. I'll take you there today, and Yunho will stay at headquarters monitoring communications.”
The agent nodded, approaching his assigned locker to retrieve his outfit for the evening. It was standard camouflage clothing. Just as well; he hated undercover missions.
“It shouldn't be particularly difficult. You just have to pick up the boy and take him to the bunker we have to the west. Mingi is in charge of transportation,” Yunho's voice reached his ears once he had put on his communication headphones.
“As long as I get home for breakfast...”
“Is Wooyoung making you pancakes for Valentine's Day, or why are you in such a hurry?” Yunho joked.
“You're such a big mouth, love,” Mingi replied instead of San.
The agent just sighed. “Let's get going, please.”
Miles away, Wooyoung was dressed in his camouflage suit and making sure all his weapons chosen for the mission were ready for the night. He was lucky because when he woke up, he didn't have to make up an excuse for San, since his mission would theoretically last a few hours and his husband had left him a note saying that there had been a major breach in the cybersecurity of one of his clients and he would have to go check the servers urgently.
“It's freezing cold,” he complained, talking to Hongjoong through the internal communication system.
From the makeshift guard post, he had a clear view of the hill where the criminal's house was located: a mansion that stood out more for its exuberant decoration than for its beauty. All drug lords were eccentrics with rather outdated taste. But who was he to judge? His entire house was San's handiwork, an attempt by the agent to please his husband and prolong their marriage for a few more years.
In the silence of the night, the signal receiver he had installed around the target's house vibrated. That was the signal Wooyoung needed to activate the countdown on the smoke bombs he had set up to distract the criminal and his gang so he could go after him. Or, at least, that's what he did until a faint, fleeting flash distracted him. He frowned. The flash came from the southwest, where there was no road to drive on, only weeds to hide in; definitely not the way someone who didn't suspect they were being followed would enter their home. Damn. He really wanted to get home in time for breakfast with San and pretend for the twenty-four hours of Valentine's Day that his marriage wasn't falling apart. That complicated things.
“Hongjoong, I thought I saw something in the southwest.”
“The southwest? Park isn't there. I'm monitoring him, and he's on the expected route.”
“Well, the fireflies must be out in force tonight...” Wooyoung watched the flash disappear into the trees with the help of the darkness. “Or someone's messing with me today.”
“Check what or who it is. And do it quickly, you have fifteen minutes before they reach the house.”
“Understood.”
A few meters away, San moved stealthily between trees and undergrowth, checking his GPS to confirm that the target's route was as expected and calculated by his agency. However, a distant murmur caught his attention. A metallic sound made him stop dead in his tracks. His muscle memory automatically made him raise his weapon, pointing it toward the confusing source of the noise. He looked up and, seeking refuge behind a tree, took the binoculars modified by Yunho out of his backpack. He activated the heat map and began recording, searching carefully for the source of the noise. He quickly found the figure of a person.
“Mingi, there's someone there.”
“Impossible, San.”
“I'm sending the footage to Yunho,” added the agent, switching the binoculars to night mode now that he had located the target.
He didn't have time to see much more than a slim, sculpted figure pointing a rifle at him when smoke bombs exploded a few meters away, surprising him at the same time as the shot that whizzed past his ear.
“Fuck,” San growled, watching as the figure disappeared into the thick smoke. “He's from another agency.”
“Run, San, they can't catch him before we do. There's a lot of money at stake.”
The smoke finally caused both agents to lose track of their target and the intruder in the game.
An hour later, San paced nervously around the agency's IT department. Yunho typed quickly beside him, growing increasingly annoyed with his partner's pacing.
“San, I can hear you thinking from here, and I need to concentrate.”
"That fucking asshole. He was a professional, not some piece of shit that the asshole criminal puts in charge of watching his country house. He knew what he was doing, Yunho. He was half an inch away from hitting me."
“You've already told me all that, but if you don't let me work on the video footage, we're not going to have anything, and I need you to shut up for five minutes.”
San took a deep breath and left the computer room to go to the bathroom. In his rush to escape, he had fallen and his knees, which were still healing from a previous injury, had started to bleed. Sighing, the agent checked to see that his bandages had already absorbed most of the blood, taking advantage of the situation to calm down and change the bandage.
Miles away, Wooyoung yelled at Hongjoong to hurry up and analyze the cameras they had placed in the area. He needed to know who the jerk was who had screwed up the interception and where the damn drug dealer had gone. Now he had two damn problems.
“One more fucking scream and I swear San will be taking you to the hospital tomorrow with a broken nose, Wooyoung.”
Hongjoong was starting to lose his patience.
“Sorry, but I'm fed up.”
“Not like me, who's delighted to work overtime for this fucking shit,” his partner and friend rolled his eyes. “Have a fucking coffee and let me work, please. Tomorrow I'll buy you a beer when this shit is over.”
Wooyoung sighed.
Ten minutes later, the IT specialists from the different companies reached a similar conclusion at the same time.
“San... Yunho wants to show you something,” Mingi's soft voice set off alarm bells for the agent. Why was he being so... tactful?
The first time he saw it, San thought Yunho was playing a joke on him. A joke in very poor taste. First, he looked at Yunho, waiting for him to confess that he had edited the images to have a laugh. Then, after getting no response from his friend, he turned his head to look at Mingi, who was nervously scratching the back of his neck.
“This doesn't seem like something to joke about, guys,” he said.
“No... It's not a joke, San. It's the video you sent with brightness and sharpness adjustments, but I swear I didn't do anything else...”
The agent stared at the screen with no emotion on his face. His husband stared back at him through the screen. Aggressive. Precise.
It couldn't be real.
San's work phone began to ring.
He picked it up.
“Choi San, you have 24 hours to get rid of the agent who botched the mission. No emotional ties will serve as an excuse. And then bring me the son of a bitch you were supposed to bring in the first place.”
The incessant beeping of the dead line rang in his ears.
Miles away, Wooyoung wiped away his tears while Hongjoong looked at him, not knowing what to say after the call from his boss, which unfolded very similarly to San's call with his.
It seemed like a cruel joke of fate.
All the silences, the disappearances, the poorly told stories... Now everything made sense. And at the same time, nothing did. A fucking relationship built on lies. Wooyoung laughed painfully, thinking of each and every time he had blamed himself for the inevitable death of their relationship; he remembered the moments when he had looked for someone to blame and had only found himself and his lies as worthy subjects to point the finger at. A human wreck who had taken advantage of the sweet innocence and ignorance of his poor San... all while San was using him. Fuck, even in his company he was the laugh of the town. “People like us die before they know love, Wooyoung; no one gets married for love in this job, they're cover-ups so that people see you as a family man and not someone with more known deaths than funerals attended,” they had told him over and over again. But he thought he could bear the guilt of the lie if he had San by his side, and it turned out that he was the one who had used him as a cover. Had he ever loved him?
Oh, now that lock to knock him down on the beach in Cadiz seven years ago was a fucking joke.
How stupid he had been.
San also felt absurdly foolish. So many times he had believed himself responsible for everything falling apart, for not being honest... And the reality was that he didn't have the slightest idea about the person who lay next to him in bed every night. He had tried tirelessly to make himself visible to a person who would never see him as anything more than someone convenient for feigning normality, for avoiding being an easy target to track down, for having an alibi decorated with wedding rings. San wanted to vomit.
That night, both cries receded from the distance of their hearts. It couldn't be real. It couldn't be that everything was a damn lie... Everything?
The clock read eight in the morning when San's car pulled into the garage of the house he had shared with his husband for five years. He raised an eyebrow when he saw Wooyoung's car already parked inside. So his husband had already come home...
The smell of pancakes was the first thing he noticed when he walked through the door. Then, the melody he would recognize anywhere: it was Face-off by Jimin, Wooyoung's favorite singer. A curious choice for someone who had betrayed him in the worst way possible. But... what if...?
“Jagiya, is that you?” Wooyoung's voice sounded soft from the kitchen.
San swallowed hard.
Wooyoung hadn't figured it out yet.
“Jagiya?” Wooyoung repeated. San then realized he hadn't answered.
"Yes! I'm taking off my shoes, sorry. I'm coming,“ the agent realized he sounded a little tense. ‘Think of it as an undercover mission, San, just pretend,’ he thought to himself. Then he sweetened his tone of voice. ”It smells so good, jagiya!"
It was true. It smelled like freshly made pancakes and chocolate. Wooyoung had probably arrived a few hours before him.
“Guess what it is!” A little laugh accompanied the sentence.
San took a deep breath and tried to get into character. It wasn't strange. He had been pretending that everything was fine in his marriage for two years. What difference did one more day make?
“It's you,” the agent smiled as he entered the kitchen, winking at his husband, who greeted him wearing a kitchen apron and a gray sweater that made him look adorable, even though he had just finished cooking the last pancakes. He took advantage of the moment to scan the kitchen for anything suspicious. He didn't find anything, but he didn't let his guard down.
He approached his husband, wrapping his arms around his waist to hug him from behind. He took the opportunity to run his hands over his sides and waist, resting them on his hips. He didn't seem to be carrying a weapon on his torso. He hoped the idea would give him a little more confidence, but it didn't.
“You didn't have to do anything special, jagiya,” San treated himself to one of what would be his last moments of intimacy with his husband, letting the tip of his nose gently brush Wooyoung's neck as he inhaled his scent.
Wooyoung had gathered his long locks of hair into a ponytail, leaving only his bangs to fall freely on either side of his face. Either for comfort while cooking or so they wouldn't get in the way if he had to chase San, gun in hand. As he gathered the strands, he wasn't quite sure which of the two reasons weighed more heavily in his decision.
The younger of the two also allowed himself to be deceived for a few more moments. He pretended that this moment, with San kissing his neck while he cooked pancakes, would last forever. He let himself be carried away by the illusion of what he once dreamed of with a heart full of hope.
“I wasn't going to let you go without your favorite things on Valentine's Day...”
“My things? Plural?”
Wooyoung tilted his head toward the counter, where a bouquet of violets lay. San's favorite flower, one that represented loyalty. How fitting for that moment.
His husband felt a stab in his heart. That moment felt like the most bittersweet farewell of all, and he wasn't prepared to be the one to end... everything. But he swallowed his feelings and put on his best rehearsed smile, letting go of his husband's waist to reach for the bouquet of flowers, holding it in his hands before approaching Wooyoung to kiss him on the cheek.
His husband stood motionless.
San noticed how his breath caught.
Wooyoung knew that San had noticed.
The atmosphere suddenly became tense.
The younger of the two took action. He had to know; he had to see if San knew... Then, turning his face to watch his husband's reaction closely, he opened his fingers to drop the glass bowl containing the pancake batter onto the floor.
San caught it before it hit the floor, with reflexes that were too precise.
They stared at each other.
They knew. They knew who they were behind the lies they had built together. They knew their heads had a price on them at the opposing agency.
The sound of glass shattering on the floor did not faze either of them for a couple of seconds. San had dropped the bowl deliberately, intentionally. Then, automatically...
“I'll clean it up,” they said in unison.
They quickly separated, scattering to different rooms in the house. San went to the bathroom on the first floor, where he had hidden a gun—always to be used in case of emergency, and his husband wanting to kill his seemed like an important one. He attached the silencer and left the bathroom, heading for the hallway, without letting his guard down.
Wooyoung went to the living room, where he took a pair of guns with silencers from a false floor under the TV cabinet.
The silence that followed was deafening.
“Jagiya, can't you find the mop, or did you go to the factory to make it yourself?” Wooyoung dared to say mockingly, pointing out the fact that San had not returned to the kitchen. The theater was over; now the next act was beginning.
The response he got was a gaping hole in his wedding photo, resting on a shelf three meters away from him. He raised an eyebrow with some amusement when he saw that San had hit him squarely in the face when he fired at the photograph.
“Son of a bitch,” San muttered.
Wooyoung quietly made his way out of the living room and into the hallway, which connected the main rooms of the house to the staircase leading to their shared bedroom. With careful steps, he moved to his office, looking to use the strategically placed mirror to see through the reflection if anyone was wandering around the hallway.
But San knew the house as well as he did. A few seconds later, the sound of the mirror shattering took him by surprise. Not just that one, but all of them on the first floor.
San had read his mind.
The agent wandered around his house, which he had considered a temple to seek rest and peace, but now with fear pulsing insistently in his neck. At any moment, it could be his last step in what had been his home for years. How could he have been such an idiot? Wooyoung hadn't hesitated for a second to disappear to go and get God knows what weapon. He hadn't even tried—he didn't know what they could try... but he didn't.
He tried to imagine what route Wooyoung could have taken, where he could be hiding...
He didn't have much time to imagine when he felt the pain in his lower back and fell to his knees. Before he could react, Wooyoung had kicked him a second time in the shoulder blades, knocking him completely to the ground.
San growled, turning quickly, managing to prevent his husband from pinning him to the ground and putting the gun to his temple.
“Fucking liar… Son of a bitch,” Wooyoung hissed as San threw him to the ground with a lock.
He couldn't stop San from climbing on top of him, but he was able to weaken him with a headbutt to the chin. He watched triumphantly as a trickle of blood ran down San's neck from his lips and chin.
“Me? You tried to kill me, asshole,” San replied, trying to wrestle the gun from his hands.
Wooyoung shook his head. “Come on, it was just a little shot. Aren't you supposed to be one of the best in your agency, Choi?”
San swallowed hard. Wooyoung's team had found his real last name.
“Shut up,” San ordered, his fingers almost reaching the gun of the man beneath him.
“I've kept quiet for two years, and look what it's gotten me. I don't think I'm going to keep quiet, pretty boy,” Wooyoung took advantage of San's distraction with his gun to slide back as far as he could with his hips and put his leg between San and him and knee him in the chest to push him away.
San coughed from the blow to his chest, grabbing Wooyoung to throw him to the ground once he managed to get up.
“After keeping your mouth shut for two years, you still open it to spout bullshit,” Wooyoung didn't know if San's words hurt more than the kick he gave him in the stomach.
The sharp pain that followed was the worst. San kicked him in the face and, in a matter of milliseconds—or at least that's how it felt to him—stepped on his wrist and kicked the gun in his right hand away. Moaning in pain, he approached his husband and bit his calf hard, destabilizing him and managing to escape his grip.
“Fucking dog,” San hissed, referring to the bite.
“I like ‘cat’ better,” he winked, the gun still in his left hand pointed at his husband.
From a distance, San watched as the blood dripping from his own chin stained Wooyoung's cheeks, swollen from the kick he had given him moments before. At that moment, his mind played tricks on him, and in his head, the man in a suit who had waited for him at the altar with the biggest smile and teary eyes now merged with the image of the man in front of him, his face full of equal parts pain and rage, and wounds caused by the person who had put the ring on his finger years ago.
He felt his stomach churn. What were they doing?
Both guns were pointed at each other. Both men looked at each other, trying to find something, but only finding rage in the other's eyes.
“Did you know that I thought this fucking shit was my fault?” Wooyoung laughed bitterly. “That this fucking sham of a marriage was ruined because of me, because I wasn't...” He swallowed. Fuck. It still hurt. “Because I wasn't enough for you.”
San wasn't going to swallow a single word of it.
“It was ruined because of you, but because you never once bothered to look after anything other than your own ego and your own comfort. You had me there like a fucking piece of furniture,” San spat.
The iron taste of blood on his lips mingled with the rage that was beginning to blind him at that moment.
“Then shoot! Just do it already,” Wooyoung urged, taking an aggressive step toward him, the gun still pointed at his forehead.
San went blank.
“Shoot! If you've been using me for years, do it one last time!”
Using him? San couldn't believe what he was hearing.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
"Isn't that it? Wasn't it convenient for you to have a little husband at home who never asked you any questions about your fucking life of early morning getaways? Wasn't it convenient to have a pretty-faced alibi?"
“Wooyo—”
“Was there anything real? Who are you, Choi San?”
That was the last straw.
"And you, Jung Wooyoung? Who the hell are you when you're not in these fucking four walls, other than the person who has pretended I don't exist for two years?"
Him doubting him hurt him deep inside.
“Shoot, you fucking liar! Or did they not teach you anything else at your fucking agency besides showing off?” Wooyoung shouted.
San felt his pulse tremble.
Something inside him prayed that it would be his husband who pulled the trigger. He couldn't live with himself if he did something like that. The mere thought made him tremble from head to toe. So only rage could take control of the situation if he wanted to survive.
“Shoot me already!” He took the gun from the person he had believed he would grow old with in his free hand, placing it between his own eyebrows with determination and trembling hands. “Do it,” his voice became soft, almost pleading.
Wooyoung froze in that instant.
“What...?” He didn't know what to say, or what to think. San looked back at him with fear in his eyes, filled with all the things they hadn't said and were now forced to resolve with gunshots and blows. “Fuck. Fight!”
San shook his head slowly.
The Wooyoung who had thrown him to the ground with the force of his arms on the day they said “I do” was becoming increasingly blurred in the reflection of the man in front of him who was pointing a gun at him, threatening to erase all his memories with the sound of a gunshot.
San dropped his gun, activating the safety before throwing it away, and watched as his husband's eyes filled with tears. Tears of helplessness, of pure terror, and of a restrained love that he had long since forgotten how to express.
“Please, San... Do something.”
‘Give me a reason to kill you,’ he begged in his mind. Because even though he had him in his hands— he was unable to pull the trigger.
But San never gave him a reason to kill him. Just as he never gave him a reason to explode in their silent fights.
The reality was that neither of them wanted to fight; they didn't want to do it if it wasn't for themselves. But they had forgotten how to do it.
Their eyes met and they felt the weight of the hundreds of thousands of glances they had shared over the years. From the curiosity that colored their eyes on the streets of Cádiz, to the pure happiness of their wedding day, to every frustration in their silent arguments... All those moments played out before their eyes in a hurricane of memories and feelings that threatened to destabilize them completely.
It did.
After a few seconds in which their agitated breathing was the only music in that sad and distressing scene, Wooyoung sobbed loudly and threw his gun away, not wasting a second of the movement to grab San by the neck and pull him close to him with force to join their lips in the most painful kiss they had ever shared.
It all happened quickly, forcefully, with frustration and too many feelings in the pit of their stomachs fighting to come out in the form of screams, kisses, and bites through their throats. San grabbed him tightly around the waist, slamming him hard against the office wall, unable to control the emotions that ran through his body from head to toe, fighting for attention. But it didn't matter, because there was only one thing in his head: Wooyoung, Wooyoung, Wooyoung, Wooyoung...; and there was only one thing in Wooyoung's: San, San, San, San...
Wooyoung's groan as his back hit the office wall was muffled by San's lips, and his hands didn't know how to handle the wave of feelings that sank him and brought him back up with every frantic movement of their bodies; taking, removing, returning... It was as if he didn't know whether he wanted to caress San's skin, to take a moment to appreciate what could be the last time he would ever touch him; or, on the other hand, to do the complete opposite, to dig his nails into his skin and tear, taking with him a part of what he had taken from them in recent years. He opted for the second option: to grab, to hurt... to possess. To mark on his own body and his with the weight of their relationship, the pain of the lies and doubts that flooded his mind. He wanted to feel San close, so close that it made him forget that perhaps what they had experienced together was never real.
San was fighting a similar battle inside, with his heart and his pain struggling in a desperate attempt to save him. His body acted with passion behind the wheel, without any rational thought to justify the way his fingers marked his husband's skin with the force with which he squeezed his hips, his thighs, his chin; all to bring him closer to himself, to feel his warmth, to convince himself that this was real and to pretend that when they separated, it would all be a bad nightmare and his life, devoid of normality, would return to what it once was.
Wooyoung tilted his head as his right hand moved up to the back of San's neck, grabbing his hair tightly to pull him closer, separating their lips. San moaned in response, licking his lower lip, swollen from the wound caused by Wooyoung's headbutt. Wooyoung wrinkled his nose in anger; anger at himself, for wanting to kiss the phony in front of him with the same or more desire than that day at the beach; anger at San, for making him believe he was someone who could be loved.
“These seven years have been the most beautiful lie I've ever lived, and I'll never forgive you for making me feel like it was real,” the venom in his words accompanied by a look full of pain.
“Jagi—”
The sound of a slap cut San's words short.
“Don't you dare call me that again, you hear me? No...” Wooyoung swallowed hard, speaking in a broken voice as he grabbed the older of the two by the collar of his shirt. “No... Please.” His fists tightened even more around the fabric, helpless.
“Wooyoung, please, let me...”
“Shut up! I don't want to hear any more fucking lies from you, San,” now a shove.
The hurricane of feelings sweeping through San was becoming increasingly unstable, and that push had been the last straw. “It's over,” he muttered in a deep voice, pushing Wooyoung hard against the desk, then grabbing him by the neck of his sweater and slamming his back against the furniture. "Now you're going to listen to me. You haven't listened to me in two fucking years, and I'm not going to let you kill us without listening to me."
“Kill us?” Wooyoung's pained voice contrasted with the ironic laugh he let out. “Funny you say that, since you're the one who's killed our marriage these last few years.”
"I've done everything to try to save this fucking mess. Everything, Wooyoung, I..."
“And it never occurred to you that instead of trying everything, controlling everything, you just had to love me for who I am?”
San's mouth felt dry. Wooyoung had never talked to him about how he felt about their marriage.
“Or did you just want to control it so that your double life would go perfectly?” His husband continued, tears in his eyes.
“Cut the fucking crap already, please, jagiya,” the agent stopped the fist that was heading for his nose after the use of the nickname. "I swear, from the bottom of my heart, I've never thought of you as anything other than the love of my life—fuck, Wooyoung. I was terrified that this..." He squeezed the hand that was holding Wooyoung's wrist and tilted his face toward his, wrinkling his nose as he watched the area where he had kicked him begin to turn purple. “This would happen. That my work would end up affecting us... And I became obsessed with controlling everything so that the only thing that made me feel safe, you, us... would remain so.”
Wooyoung held his breath.
“And along the way, you forgot that if it was safe, it was because we were ourselves, without filters.”
San raised an eyebrow, clearly finding something funny in Wooyoung's observation. “Well, without filters... I'd say we've both had a few filters from the beginning.”
His husband couldn't help but smile beneath it, revealing a cut on his upper lip. San wanted to caress it, but he didn't know how to read the situation without making a misstep.
“We have had some...” Wooyoung's voice sounded soft, as if a wall that had been built too long ago had fallen, releasing an invisible weight that had been contained for years.
“I'm sorry.”
After San's apology, there was a silence that allowed the agent to hear his own heart beating loudly against his chest.
“I'm sorry, San,” he said as he caressed his lip, broken and swollen from kisses and blows. “I... I gave you the role of safe place without asking if it was a burden, and I assumed you always would be. You made me feel so safe that I forgot it wasn't something that came easily, so I took you for granted. And I stopped appreciating that you made me feel that way in the first place.”
Another silence.
Two hearts beating fast.
Two ragged breaths.
“We're both idiots.”
San's cheerful laughter, that high-pitched sound Wooyoung had almost forgotten how it sounded, was once again a melody that delighted his ears. “We're two big idiots.”
They laughed together, between small moans of stomach pain from the blows and tight lips from the still-bleeding wounds.
“You kick well,” Wooyoung complimented him, pointing to his own cheek humorously.
“You take them well,” San replied with another compliment.
Another silence.
Two hearts beating fast.
Two ragged breaths.
“I always thought red looked great on you.”
Wooyoung frowned at his husband's comment, looking down at his gray sweater and black pants. He wasn't wearing anything red except... his own blood—and San's, probably.
He couldn't stop the laughter that escaped his mouth.
“You're a freak.”
“Not a liar, though.”
The third silence.
Two hearts beating fast.
A knowing glance.
“I love you,” San spoke first.
“And I love you too,” Wooyoung's words were barely a whisper on San's lips when he managed to grab him by the collar of his shirt to pull the older man closer to his lips with urgency.
In those moments, he needed San as much as he needed to breathe to live. He needed him with his lips, with his hands, with his tongue, with his heart, with his arms... He longed for him with his soul.
San wasted no time in giving in to the pleas of his racing heart, leaning in to claim his husband's lips as his own in a kiss where passion seeped into every nook and cranny of his being. The warmth of Wooyoung's palm on his cheek was as comforting as it was burning, caressing and possessing in equal measure, anchoring him in the moment in the fiercest of ways. On the other hand, his lips pressed with such determination that the agent felt Wooyoung stealing his breath away in the sweetest way possible.
The moans of pain were indistinguishable from those of pleasure; broken and bruised lips were bitten, carelessly and intentionally. The iron taste of blood seeped into the hot dance of their tongues, which pressed eagerly against each other.
Wooyoung missed the warmth that had accompanied him for years; he longed for it with every inch of his body. It didn't take him long to reach for one of his favorite places in the whole world: his husband's waist. With determination, he pulled him until their hips collided, causing a growl from San that his lips desperately swallowed. “More San... More,” was all he could think, intoxicated by the memories of the passion inscribed on his skin over the years, the work of the hands and lips of the man above him. He then wrapped his legs around his partner's narrow hips, pulling him closer to himself.
“I need you, San. I really need you.”
No more words were needed.
They shed their clothes at the same time as they shed the walls they had built between them with lies over the seven years of their relationship. The walk to the bedroom was hurried and, miraculously, they didn't cut themselves on the shards of one of the mirrors that San had shot. They kissed on every single door on the way to their bedroom, fighting for dominance in a stupid power game.
“Aren't you going to carry me in your arms like on our wedding night? I consider today to be our vow renewal,” Wooyoung's comment made San laugh out loud as he pushed him determinedly toward their shared bed.
The tingling in his stomach was highly addictive. That was something he had always loved about their relationship: that Wooyoung made him die of desire and laugh like a fool in equal measure. The muffled laughter between kisses on the neck and hands caressing with desperate tenderness used to be a routine that they both knew well, but that they had said goodbye to over the years in their relationship. And there they were again two years later, with Wooyoung turning them around so he could place both legs on either side of his husband, watching him with affection and fire in his eyes from above.
“I've missed us.”
San smiled wistfully, bringing his hand to his husband's cheek, who melted at the touch, seeking to melt his skin with his fingertips. “Me too, jagiya.”
When his husband opened his eyes again, the sweetness that had colored his gaze moments before had been replaced by pure fire and, perhaps, a hint of mischief. With a small smile, his full lips kissed the palm of his hand once... and twice. The third never came, as the last of the kisses landed on his thumb a second before his tongue wrapped around it in a wet, dirty kiss. San swallowed hard, unable to utter a word at the sight unfolding before him. The full lips wrapped around his finger in a sensual gesture as Wooyoung looked at him with narrowed eyes through his long lashes, challenging him with his gaze to let go of the last shred of sanity the agent had left. And he succeeded at the very moment when the warmth of his mouth left him, replaced by the hot wetness of his tongue licking his thumb from base to tip, leaving a trail of saliva connecting his tongue to what San wished was his cock, lying on his abdomen, twitching with pleasure.
“Nice show,” he teased in a hoarse voice, running his thumb over Wooyoung's full lips one last time. “Now spit,” he ordered.
San opened his palm in front of his husband's lips, who raised it with some curiosity before caressing the back of his husband's hand, where the wedding ring rested, shining brightly. Without taking his ardent gaze of desire from San's feline eyes, he brought his husband's hand to his lips and slowly let his saliva fall onto it, his tongue visible, aware that San was trembling at the sight.
With a sly smile, Wooyoung pulled San's hand away, licking his lower lip to collect the saliva that had fallen from it.
Then, without warning, what little remained of Wooyoung's updo on his hair ended up falling to the sides of his face when San took it upon himself to remove the hair tie so he could do a better job, pulling at the strands until their mouths were inches apart. He wanted to tempt him, and Wooyoung knew it, but his heart was beating too wildly to play any games; he needed San with every inch of his skin, and his hips let him know it, pressing their crotches together, eliciting a muffled moan from both their throats.
“Have you forgotten what to do or what?” Wooyoung's sultry voice in a teasing tone was music to the agent's ears.
But what was a fucking symphony to him was the moan that joined his own when, with his right hand, he wrapped around Wooyoung's erection and his own with one hand, leaving a hot, wet caress.
From that moment on, their bodies responded to the growing desire burning inside them, eager to explode. Guided by pleasure and the only thought running through his head, Wooyoung grabbed San's chin tightly, drinking in the moan that escaped him when he felt the touch on his still-open wound, bringing him closer to his lips and searching for his tongue with his own.
His mind and mouth could only say one thing: San, San, San, San, San... and, fuck, what a thing that was.
Rage, pain, passion, and love set their bodies on fire in the best possible way, making them move in unison as they sought together to reach that place they had returned to many times before, tired and with trembling legs. Their hips moved in unison, chasing the heat that had settled in their lower bellies and threatened to explode at any moment while San jerked both off.
Wooyoung felt like he was going to explode at any moment, especially every time San's wet grip tightened around them both, creating more friction and letting his glans rub aggressively against the other's.
“San, I'm going to... Fuck, jagiya,” he had no words. Even if he wanted to find them, he couldn't have done so.
His vision began to blur from how tightly he had closed his eyes without realizing it, guided purely and solely by the desire to pursue longed-for pleasure.
“No,” San's hoarse voice confused him, pulling him out of his trance.
“What...?”
Disoriented, Wooyoung opened his eyes to find the feline gaze fixed on his with desire and determination.
“I want to make you feel good.”
With his brain feeling like jelly, Wooyoung had no choice but to nod, not understanding the situation, but knowing that whatever it was, San would make him feel like he was in heaven.
The older of the two released his grip on their erections, causing the younger to hiss in response, missing the friction and heat. But it didn't take him long to understand San's intentions, who had taken it upon himself to turn them around so that he ended up on top of him, his broad back serving as a shield for both of them. Licking his lips, the older man had no qualms about letting his gaze feast on the curves and lines that outlined Wooyoung's body on the sheets. His fingertips slowly traced the contours of his side, letting his fingers open burning grooves in their wake. His lips were not far behind, covering his lover's torso with wet kisses, focusing on his abdomen, which ended up with a couple of marks as a souvenir of the moment that Wooyoung would look at in the mirror with a small smile days later. “You're beautiful, Young-ah,” he said in awe, worshipping his lover’s body like Wooyoung was his own God.
Wooyoung felt his cheeks burn as he saw his husband lying between his legs, his lips dangerously close to his eager erection and the most intense look of longing he had ever seen. He felt like he was on a fucking cloud.
And San made sure to remind him how precious he was, running his tongue the entire length of his erection in one long lick, reveling in the moment, enjoying it as much as his lover. San had always liked to put on a show, and Wooyoung had always been his most loyal audience.
Perhaps, given the nature of his job, Wooyoung would never know heaven, but he didn't need to if he had San loving him with every part of his being between his legs. Or, at least, that's what he thought as his trembling fingers weakly clung to his husband while he took him to the sweetest place with an orgasm that had made him see stars behind his eyes and left him with his legs trembling next to San's shoulders.
5 years later.
Fleeing from their agencies, which wanted them dead for the betrayal of choosing each other over the state secrets they kept, both men ended up in a place that was familiar, yet distant.
“San, please tell that boy to swim closer to the shore or I'll embarrass him in front of his friends,” Wooyoung asked his husband, watching their son laugh with his friends as they probably argued about which Pokémon was better.
“He's a perfect swimmer, jagiya, relax.”
“I can't, we've been here so long that I'm just another mother from Cadiz now.”
“You fit in so well here, Wooyo,” Yunho laughed, taking a sip of beer while Mingi put sunscreen on him.
“All three of you... You look happy,” Hongjoong concluded from the other side, hidden under a parasol and a towel, as well as three liters of sunscreen.
“We are,” the ex-assassins replied in unison, looking at his son laughing along with his friends.
They had a new life. Far from lies.