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Being roommates with Nicholas is generally a good thing. He keeps clean enough for Maki’s liking, they get along like matching horses do or however that Japanese idiom is supposed to go, and Maki gets to make sure his English fluency doesn’t die in the process. Maki would never tell him, but Nicholas is probably his favourite hyung, and he cares about him a lot, and it’s because Maki cares about him a lot that he has to put his foot down when they hit the two hour mark of Cold Winter Breakup Songs blasting from Nicholas’ phone speakers.
“Nico-” Maki starts, removing an airpod and rolling over in bed to face him. Except he doesn’t quite manage to, because Nicholas is buried face-down in his pillows avoiding eye contact, lying almost a little too motionless for comfort. “Dude. Are you good. Are you alive?”
Nicholas makes a very alive dying goat noise.
Maki squints at him, trying to recall what could have possibly happened today while Nicholas was out, and then remembers seeing their open closet doors and clothes strewn all over the floor as he'd been getting dressed this morning, and it clicks into place.
Very quickly, one thing leads to another: Maki in Nico's bed, Nico in Maki's lap. Nico’s pajama bottoms pooled around his knees, a slow-growing wet patch in the front of his boxers as he grinds down onto Maki's thigh, all the while making sad little sniffing noises into Maki's neck.
Maki sighs, running a soothing hand down Nicholas’ back. “There there. Tell Maki what's wrong.” Even though Maki already knows what's wrong, and really, it shouldn't have taken him this long to think about it. When it comes to Nicholas, self described nonchalant chill guy, there's rarely anything else that the answer can possibly be.
“Juju,” Nicholas warbles. He kind of harmonises with whatever song it is that's still playing in the background, which makes Maki laugh even if really does try his absolute best to not to. For that he earns a light punch on the bicep, but not that it really matters since it's easy to redirect Nico's attention by sticking his hand down his boxers and grabbing his dick, making him hiss.
“Just come already,” Maki mutters, doing that thing he knows Nico likes, rubbing his palm over the sensitive tip of his dick, making Nico's hips jerk.
“You’re being so mean to me,” Nico sighs, face flushed.
“Maybe,” Maki teases, and does it again, feeling Nicholas’ thighs tremble the way they always do when he's close. “Isn’t that what you like about him anyway?”
“Ungh- ah-” Nicholas complains, throwing his head back. He's always whiny, like he's trying to let the whole house know what they're getting up to. Maybe he is, like some kind of revenge against Euijoo, for breaking his heart over and over again, the same way people start flaunting rebounds, except Maki isn't a rebound, not really, and also he doesn't really get how it’s an effective form of revenge if Euijoo's supposedly straight. Either way, Maki would rather not everyone get woken up by Nico’s moaning, so he removes his hand from his back and sticks his fingers into his mouth to shut him up. And Nicholas is one masochistic bastard for real, because instead of swatting Maki away like he'd been expecting him to, he starts sucking.
“Girl,” Maki blurts, caught off guard.
Nicholas mumbles something that sounds like but Maki sure hopes isn't an if only, thrusting back up into Maki's palm, eyes closing to focus on the pleasure. Or maybe he's pretending he's with someone else. With Euijoo.
He's close, if the amount of pre he's dripping is any indicator, still making little noises around Maki's fingers, so Maki gets on with it and jerks him off faster.
Nicholas comes all over himself and Maki’s hand, both their clothes miraculously avoiding the splatter zone, and topples backwards into the bed, chest heaving, still in between Maki's legs.
“Want me to help you with that?” he asks, breathy, knee pointing at the small tent in Maki's pants.
He considers it briefly, a memory of Nicholas on his knees flashing past his mind. “What time is it?” he asks, holding both dirtied hands up in the air to show Nicholas that he's kind of incapable of touching his own phone and checking right now.
Nicholas slaps around the bed for a bit, looking for his own, locating it precariously wedged between the wall and bed, about to fall into the abyss. “Two-twenty?”
Maki frowns. “Nevermind. I don’t feel like taking another shower this late.”
Nicholas somehow manages to shrug while lying down. “Oka-y,” he drawls, rolling over to climb out of bed. He does an awkward waddle with his shirt pulled up and pants pooled around his ankles, dick out, looking around their room for Maki’s bag. “Where do you keep your wet tissues?”
“Where do you think I’d put them?”
Nicholas attempts his worst mew attempt yet while rummaging through Maki's stuff. “I'm Maki, where would I put them?”
“Never do that again,” Maki says, disgusted. He's suddenly extra aware of the cum and spit drying on his hands, both messes thanks to Nicholas. “They're in the outside pocket.”
Nicholas finds them, flinging a well-aimed wet wipe towards Maki, where it lands in his lap. Cleaning his own hands, Maki watches Nicholas swipe around his stomach absentmindedly, staring off into space.
“Nico?” Maki asks, and when he doesn’t respond immediately he repeats himself louder. “Nico!”
“Mmh.” Nicholas answers, mouth moving but eyes still unfocused. “Sorry. I think post-nut depression just hit me.”
“Aww. Wanna talk about it?”
Nicholas purses his lips. “Eh. Not really. But can you follow me to the shower?”
“Yeah, I need to properly wash your DNA off my hands anyway,” Maki tells him, which Nicholas complains about, going oi. “Let's go.”
The hallway isn't dark when they leave their room. Usually, this isn't something that requires noticing, since people forget to turn the lights off all the time, but if Maki had been paying a little more attention, maybe he would have noticed the sound of a tap being turned off in the kitchen, or a cup getting put back on the rack, of someone's slippered footsteps approaching.
Alas, he hadn't been, and so when Byun Euijoo himself abruptly materialises in front of them Nicholas and Maki let out matching surprised yelps, grabbing each other out of instinct.
“Juju,” Nicholas laughs nervously, hurriedly unfurling his fist from the edge of Maki's shirt. “You were awake?”
Euijoo doesn't look particularly keen to answer, wearing that difficult face he reserves for only Nicholas where it looks like he's just eaten a lemon. Maki supposes that it's because of his presence that Euijoo manages to school himself into making a more neutral expression, tone perfectly flat when he says, “Went to get water.”
“Ah.” Nicholas remarks. “We-”
Euijoo hums, mouth flat. “If you were doing anything, I have no idea,” he tells them, which in Byun Euijoo language means he definitely heard them but doesn't want to deal with it. Spinning around on his heels and taking a sharp right down the hallway to his own room, he ends the ‘conversation’ with a gently firm, “Don’t stay up too late,” and then he's gone as suddenly as he appeared.
Maki waits until the bathroom door is shut and there's water running in the sink before he’s brave enough to speak again. English, just in case Euijoo’s standing outside like a creep, which isn’t something that Maki actually thinks he’d do, but just in case, you know. “He sounded jealous.”
“Man, don’t even say that,” Nicholas mutters under his breath, carelessly draping his clothes over the edge of the counter before getting into the shower. “I’m already delulu enough, okay?”
“Did something happen today?” Maki asks cautiously, over the sound of the shower spray. “I know we don’t usually talk about it, but-”
“There’s a reason we don’t talk about it, Maki,” Nicholas snaps, rubbing soap suds between his legs. In all his untasteful nudity, he’s twisted into a weird standing position while trying to prevent the water from touching his hair, making it a bit difficult for Maki to take his irritation seriously. He doesn’t have to, in the end, since Nicholas has chronic oversharer disease and ends up spilling before Maki even tries to pretend to apologise anyways. “It’s just the same shit. I say too much. He pulls the leader voice on me and goes, no, Nicholas, like I’m five years old or something.”
“If he’s-” Maki briefly wonders if Nicholas might hit him for saying this. He bit him once, on instinct or whatever, in the middle of sex, when Maki had really, truly, with no ill intentions at all, had said that he’d be fine if Nico called him Euijoo in bed. Left an oval ring of indents on his collarbone that had bruised the next morning under the dangerously sheer top of his stage outfit. And Nicholas had embarrassedly apologised right after, but still. “If he is straight, maybe it really is time to just. You know. Move on. You’re hot, dude. You could pull.”
Nicholas grumbles something in Mandarin under his breath that may or may not be directed at Maki.
“I’m just saying.”
Maki watches Nicholas rinse himself clean before turning the shower off. He hands him his towel, or at least Maki sure hopes it’s his, since there’s two of the grey ones hanging on the wall. Nicholas takes it and dries off wordlessly, eyes trained on the bathroom tile and biting down on the inside of his cheek, sullen. When he reaches out for his clothes Maki, a little remorseful, retrieves them for him, holding them out in front of him like a human shelving unit. Nicholas puts his underwear on and doesn’t bother with the rest, setting the towel back onto the hook it came from. This side up, Maki just makes out the fuzzy round shape of a Sharpie-scribbled ieung on the tag. Wrong towel then, and it just had to be Euijoo’s.
Nicholas pushes past Maki to get out of the stuffiness of the bathroom, and Maki trails after him, feeling a little hangdog. He’s still got Nico’s shirt clutched in his hand, like a child refusing to let go of their favourite pillow even though all that’s left of it is scraps.
Back to their perfectly air-conditioned room, Nico takes a dive towards his own bed. They usually have at least a little bit of a cuddle after any kind of sexual activity, but this time Maki’s left standing there wondering if this time he’s allowed to join or not.
“Sorry,” Maki mumbles.
“Why are you sorry,” Nicholas says softly, patting the space beside him. Maki turns the lights off and working off muscle memory crawls expertly into his side. “Euijoo, that guy, seriously,” Nicholas starts, once Maki settles down, pulling the sheets up over them. “He’ll be so. So- you know-”
“Mhm.”
“But then the second we’re not alone anymore it’s no, we can’t, this won’t go anywhere. Or he pulls the I’m straight card. He knows he likes me. He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t believe in dating without the intentions of marriage or whatever, I guess, like I wouldn’t marry him in a heartbeat. And I can-”
“Because Taiwan,” Maki not-particularly-helpfully supplies, speaking into Nicholas’ armpit, which should be kind of gross, really, but they’ve done grosser things, and he’s freshly showered anyways, so it isn’t really. Just warm.
“Because Taiwan. But I guess that’s a lot to ask from him, I don’t know,” Nicholas sighs.
Maki blinks in the darkness. He’s not really sure what possesses him to say what he says next. “Well, I’d marry you.”
The words hang in the air for a bit. Maki can’t see, but his imagination is good enough for him to picture Nicholas squinting at him in the dark. Missing the window for the ideal comedic timing entirely, Maki hastily tacks on an off-beat, casual, “Dude.” It sticks out like blu-tack residue on drywall.
“Dude,” Nicholas repeats, and snorts. “Thanks.”
“I’m not trying to, like,” Maki fumbles. “Replace him. Of course.”
“I know,” Nicholas tells him, hands finding his hair and roughly mussing it up. “Wouldn’t want you to, anyway.”