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Jun is sharing a hotel room with Nino tonight, but Nino has been driving him up the wall from the moment their manager left. He refuses to turn down the volume on his video game and he won't stop complaining about the fumes from Jun's nailpolish, even now that everything is put away. On a normal night Jun would at least try to ignore it, but now, on the last leg of the tour, when he's already nearing the frayed ends of his patience, it is simply too much.
So he goes to see Ohno.
Unlike the other four, Ohno always gets his own room. He's the oldest, for one, and also he's the leader. And then there's the fact that when the door swings open, he leans out with droopy shoulders and blown pupils and laughter already in his voice as he says, "Hey."
Jun blinks. "Oh -- sorry, Captain, I uh -- I didn't realize --"
Ohno huffs out another laugh and turns away, retreating into the room but leaving the door wide open. A clear invitation. Jun glances around the empty hallway before slipping inside and closing the door behind him. The balcony door is slid open, and Ohno is already settling down onto the floor outside. Jun crosses the room and stands there at the threshold, watching as Ohno fishes a lighter out of his pocket and picks up the joint sitting in a glass ashtray by his knee. He lights it, takes a deep hit off it and holds it for a few seconds before blowing out a wispy plume of smoke that floats away on the breeze.
He looks up at Jun and smiles. "Wanna try?"
It's not the first time he's offered, and it's not the first time Jun has contemplated saying yes. He hesitates, but in the end he shakes his head, the way he always does, and finally joins Ohno on the balcony. He sits on the ground across from Ohno and tugs his sleeves down over his fists. It's chilly out here, but Ohno seems perfectly comfortable.
The silence stretches out between them until Jun asks, "What's it like?"
Ohno flashes a dopey smile, his eyes so heavy-lidded they're nearly closed. "Feels good," he says.
Jun picks at a loose thread on the hem of his sleeve. "Good how?"
Ohno thinks about it as he leans back against the railing and takes another puff. He's quiet for long enough that Jun isn't sure he's going to answer, but finally he says, "Like everything is slowed down, but also more clear. Not like being drunk. This is different."
Jun takes a moment to reflect on that. He's always enjoyed the feeling of being buzzed, how the haze of alcohol makes it harder to think, harder to be stressed out. Captain never seems stressed out.
Ohno adds, "It makes me feel happy. Easier to focus on the good things." Jun feels his face grow warm at those words and steadfastly does not think about why, but Ohno doesn't notice or chooses not to comment. "Like when I listen to music," he continues. "I can hear all the different parts -- things I didn't notice before."
Jun bites his lip, tucks a rogue strand of hair behind his ear, and says, "I think I changed my mind."
If Ohno asked him to explain what he means, or to articulate why he wants to do it now after all this time, Jun would probably change his mind all over again. But Ohno doesn't question it for even a second. He grins as he reaches for the ashtray and re-lights the joint. He passes it over, says "Start off slow," and still Jun takes an overly ambitious puff and immediately coughs it out.
Ohno laughs, but it doesn't feel mean. "It's okay, Jun-kun, everyone's first time is like that."
Jun recovers -- although it takes a minute -- and tries again. Now that he knows what to expect, the second puff is a little more successful; he still coughs, but he's more composed about it. He's smoked cigarettes before and it's not like those are all that pleasant the first time around either, but this is different. He can feel the tingly burn in his throat and in his lungs, and it tastes just as weird as it smells. But surely, he tells himself, it'll pay off.
He starts to ask, "How long does it take to --"
Oh.
It's subtle at first, yet at the same time unmistakable: something about the way he can feel, with alarming precision, the shape of his mouth forming the words. Then it spreads, slowly trickling down over his whole body. He kind of feels like he's being dipped headfirst into a pool of quicksand. He glances around, feels his eyes moving in his head, and is dazzled by the city lights and the stars glittering in the sky like jewels.
He thinks, They're so bright, and doesn't realize he said it out loud until Ohno hums in agreement.
When Jun passes the joint back, Ohno's fingers brush against the back of his hand. It's just a fleeting touch, barely anything at all, but Jun finds himself staring at his hand. He wiggles his fingers and watches the light and the shadows change as his veins shift under his skin. He thinks he can feel the lingering warmth of Ohno's fingertips.
"Jun-kun."
When he looks back up, Ohno has a knowing smile on his face. He braces his hands on his knees and stands up, nodding towards the door. "Let's go inside."
Jun follows him in and slides the balcony door shut. He's still acutely aware of how his body is moving, even as he stands there, doing nothing but watching Ohno lie down on the bed, over the blankets, stretching his legs out and folding his hands over his stomach. Jun keeps standing, unsure of what to do, until Ohno pats the mattress and says, "You can sit."
He looks at Ohno a second longer and then moves to lie alongside him, intentionally mirroring his body language: legs stretched out, hands folded over his stomach. He looks up at the ceiling and tries to see what Ohno sees there, tries to feel what Ohno is feeling, but what he feels instead is how close they are. Whenever Ohno shifts to get more comfortable, the point of his elbow nudges against Jun's.
Now that they're inside with the door closed, Jun is feeling very warm.
It's not like this is the closest they've ever been, he tells himself, but when it's not happening for a photo shoot -- when there's no one else around to see it -- it feels different.
Jun thinks: It could be different in other ways, too.
Panic washes over him in an instant, like someone flipped a switch. He's terrified at the thought that he'd said it out loud, but when he looks, there's not even a hint of a reaction on Ohno's face. He seems just as peaceful as he did before, his eyes droopy but somehow focused as he continues staring at the ceiling, his mouth closed but relaxed.
Ohno glances over and catches him staring. Jun snaps his gaze back to the ceiling, feeling the tension in his wrists as his hands clench. When Ohno reaches to touch his shoulder, it feels like there's static sparking between them.
"Jun-kun. Hey. You all right?"
Jun forces himself to nod and feels like he's doing it way too hard. "Uh-huh."
Ohno says, quietly, "Maybe this was a bad idea."
Jun shakes his head this time.
A beat passes, and then: "You wanna listen to some music or something?"
"Okay."
Ohno gets up and comes back with his MP3 player and some headphones. Jun accepts them, careful not to let his fingers brush Ohno's as the items pass between their hands.
Ohno settles in next to him and says, "Just relax. I'll be right here if you need anything."
Jun is still excruciatingly aware of how close they are, but once he starts scrolling through Ohno's music library, he quickly becomes distracted. Before long, it's like the small, bright screen and the plastic buttons clicking beneath his fingertips are the only things in the room. He finds some Michael Jackson and queues up a playlist, and from the first seconds of the first song, he realizes Ohno was right: he's listened to this hundreds of times before, but listening to it now feels like he's unlocked some hidden level of consciousness. He hears things he never noticed before -- little beats in the background, the different layers of the voice track, the deep rhythm of the bass buried underneath the high tones. Now that he knows they're there, he doesn't think he'll ever be able to forget them.
He wakes up the next morning with his hand still curled loosely around Ohno's MP3 player. He's even groggier than usual, and his mouth feels like someone stuffed it with cotton balls while he was asleep. But when he can finally bear to open his eyes, the first thing he sees, set on the nightstand beside the bed, is a cup of coffee and a bottle of eye drops.
The coffee is steaming hot, lightened with cream and sweetened with honey. Just the way he likes it.