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To say Beomgyu has a peculiar life was an understatement. At the age of 25, he is his father’s biggest disappointment — a med school dropout because he discovered he was prone to fainting at the slightest sight of needles a bit too late, forcing him to turn to a bleak office job that exists purely to fund his aspiring career as a streamer.
Being gay is the least of his parents’ concerns, truthfully. There are worse things in his life.
Like his neighbor’s secret crack den exploding on a random Friday night at 4 a.m., mere seconds after he finishes another League match with Soobin, his best friend since high school, and a random 13-year-old who is kind enough to carry them in matches.
If his pride is bruised after being outdone by somebody who hadn’t even been taught the Pythagorean theorem at school, and the earful he had gotten at work earlier that day because he had CC-ed the entire accounting department instead of just his boss, then nothing remains after almost losing all of his precious hair to the fire wreaking havoc in his apartment.
Soobin had nagged, again and again, that he could afford a better place with the recent raise that he had gotten, but Beomgyu ignored it, choosing instead to order more clothes that he doesn't have anywhere special to wear, outside of his weekly dates with countless men that go nowhere. He may live in a shithole, infested to the brim with cockroaches, mold serving as tasteful, avant-garde decoration in his bathroom, but he always takes pride in looking the best at every single event, no matter the time or place.
Well — he could only imagine his friends mockingly rubbing his back in comfort as they hide their barely restrained cackles — that too is no more, seeing as his entire bedroom is engulfed in fire in what feels like a single second, leaving only heat and destruction in its wake.
“This is it,” He thinks, a devastating cough shaking his body as smoke and ash fill his lungs, his entire life — everything he had worked so hard for — burns to smithereens in front of him. "This is how I die."
A sexless, heartbroken loser, with nothing to his name except a few fleeting relationships, two friends from high school that probably barely like him anyway, and a set of parents who leave his texts on seen on Christmas Eve. He doesn’t want to think about the last time he had intimate contact with another human being, except for the few lustful kisses he had shared with a man he doubts will become his boyfriend.
Delirious, he wonders if perhaps his date for tomorrow will think he had stood them up and not burned to death, leaving him as a sack of charred bones because his neighbors liked cooking drugs in their kitchen too much.
Honestly, he would have cancelled it anyway, but the lack of choice leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. A romantic dinner nestled in an expensive restaurant is too much for him, no matter how much fun it would have been to flutter his eyes at his date and pretend he would not give out easily on the fifth date. Yeonjun was nice, funny, and handsome, and every other nice word Beomgyu can find in a thesaurus, but Beomgyu is, as his friends call it, a pussy afraid of commitment.
Soon enough, there is no oxygen left to supply his brain, and his weak knees give out easily, sparks bursting under his closed eyelids. When he passes out, he does so without grace, his energy depleting quickly as his body tumbles to the ground, like a doll left without its strings.
Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for his neighbors, who he might or might not sue for millions, his front door is busted open the moment his head hits the ground, blood staining the white of his carpet.
"There is a person here," A voice rings out, loud enough to make him wince. "I'll get them, check the other apartments for more survivors."
Footsteps dodge the fire and the burning remains of Beomgyu’s living room, before they halt in front of him. Then, a pause. "Beomgyu?"
ৡ
Turns out there are many, many ways for Beomgyu to embarrass himself; he is starting to learn. Spilling hot coffee on his mentor's Gucci shirt the first day at work, it seems, couldn't amount to this.
"How are you feeling? Are you still dizzy?" The EMT asks, a man probably around his age. Hands squeezed around the warm cup of chamomile tea he had been graciously given, Beomgyu adjusts the thin blanket atop his shoulders as he shifts his head further back, letting the nasty wound on the top of his head be stitched together. His name reads 'Kang Taehyung', and Beomgyu decides he is probably one of the only nice things about tonight. "Thankfully, the firefighters got there fast enough."
Before he died of lack of oxygen, Beomgyu wants to correct him, but keeps his mouth shut. He seemed nice enough, focused on his job of making Beomgyu feel more human again and not like a sad husk of a soul, encased in ash and dried blood, but he is unable to stop his awful mood from tugging the corners of his mouth down.
"Do I..." He swallows around the ball of anxiety in his throat, his voice scratched raw and cracking along the edges. "Do I need to go to the hospital?"
"It's not needed." There is always a 'but'. His head pounds, reminding him of the concussion slowly melting his brain away. "But I'd like for you to be checked over again tomorrow. The fumes from the fire were quite toxic, and I'd like for your lungs and your head to be checked properly."
His lips shake. A night in, full of gaming and snacks, ruined by a failed attempt at cooking crack in a microwave older than his grandma and a possible poisoning because he had inhaled all of it.
His only comfort is watching his neighbors, handcuffs adorning their hands, be shoved roughly into a police car, spitting curses without care at the police officers. He never liked them anyway — they always made sure to fuck loudly in the middle of the night on a Tuesday, fully knowing he could hear every creak of their shitty bed.
The EMT turns away with a chortle, and Beomgyu finds it as his cue to ask the question that had been plaguing his mind. "Can I have a phone to call a friend? I have to find a place to stay the night."
He knows both Soobin and Kai are still awake, no doubt wondering why he had suddenly gone offline in the middle of a call. He isn't looking forward to being forced to sleep on a couch he knows his friends have fucked on before, nor the nagging Soobin would delight to give him, but he doesn't have a choice, does he? His only other option is, well, something he'd rather not talk about.
‘ Forbidden ’ is not a word he wants to think about yet. His neck hurts from the way he had been refusing to glance towards the group of firefighters conversing with each other, too far away from him to hear anything.
"Of course! Just give me a second to clean up here and—"
"That won't be needed." A smooth voice cuts Taehyun off, startling both of them. His hand flies towards his racing heart. Beomgyu hadn't noticed him at all, too busy trying to avoid gawking at the general area he thought he had been. "You can use my phone," Yeonjun smiles widely, looking like something out of the 90s gay porn magazines Beomgyu used to sigh at in high school, with his mussed hair and soot on his cheeks. "Or you can stay with me, if you would like."
Taehyun pauses, an eyebrow rising in question. "If you'd say so." Then, he turns around, walking to the front of the van and leaving Beomgyu to the proverbial wolves to eat him alive. Well, wolf. Though, he gulps, he feels like the wolf himself when his eyes stray downwards by accident, to Yeonjun's open firefighter jacket and the black muscle shirt that clung to the shape of his abs a bit too well.
He breathes in sharply, an awkward smile gracing his lips as he hopes Yeonjun didn't notice that. "Nice seeing you... here." Fuck, that sounds as dry as the last time Soobin had attempted to bake cookies and Beomgyu and Kai had ended up as his unwilling guinea pigs.
Yeonjun tilts his head, blinking. "It's nice seeing you alive. Not so nice in this setting, though. I expected to see you tomorrow, all prettied up and everything," Beomgyu blames the leftover adrenaline and stress for the way his heart flips when Yeonjun giggles at his own joke.
Easy, he is being too easy, as blush clings high on his cheeks. This is why he had been dreading committing to this man whom he had met randomly online a mere month ago. He was supposed to be a ‘one date and go’, to pay for Beomgyu's expensive dinner and then ghost him like everybody else when Beomgyu refused to drop to his knees immediately after that, but no — he had to save Beomgyu's life and look incredibly sexy in the process.
"Yeah," His voice sounds embarrassingly squeaky to his own ears, but Yeonjun doesn't seem to mind.
A groan leaves his lips as he stretches, Yeonjun implores, eyes gentle. "How are you feeling?"
"Could be better. They said I had to be kept an eye on while sleeping in case I got a concussion."
Yeonjun nods sympathetically, "It worried me a lot when I found you. You looked half gone already."
"Thank you," Beomgyu says breathlessly. He had been going in and out of consciousness when Yeonjun arrived, and had thought he was well on his way to heaven when a beautiful, dark-haired angel took him in their arms, away from the cloying tendrils of fire and destruction. He may have been in heaven already, with his face mushed against the muscles of Yeonjun's chest, nestled in the safety of his hold. "For saving me."
His friends are going to have a field day with this. They already like Yeonjun better than him, simply from the few words they had managed to wrangle out of his mouth about their dates.
Flustered at whatever Yeonjun had seen pass over his face, he waves his hands, ears a cherry red. "That's my job, there's no need for that." He bounces on the back of his feet, jarringly nervous. "Now, what do you say about– about that?"
"About what?" Beomgyu yawns; it's nearing 5 a.m., and he can feel his body starting to shut down on him, in desperate need of a warm bed.
Yeonjun kisses the front of his teeth, redness marrying his high cheekbones, "Staying with me." Then, he splutters, flushing even further, as he waves his hands around, "I mean, for the night. I have some medical training, I can look after you—"
"I'd love you too." The admission is softer than he had intended, perhaps too honest for the small, delicate thing blooming in his chest.
He doesn't remember his reservations about Yeonjun anymore, nor the dating apps gathering dust in his phone, nor the ash and dust that was now his apartment, or his budding headache from his concussion. He thinks, that the only thing he remembers from tonight is how the soft cotton of Yeonjun's bed had smelled of lavender and laundry detergent, and how the small juncture of Yeonjun's neck tastes sweet, like a fruit from the garden of Eden that Beomgyu had picked himself.