It was half past eight in the evening. Why had I agreed to meet him at a place like this when I was going to work the following day? Curiosity would probably be the main reason. I must say I was a little curious to see what his explanation would be. Curious enough to meet up with a total stranger.

I’d waited a few minutes when I saw a person walking with confident steps. The person approached me.

“Chongsung?” he asked hesitant.

“Changsun!” I quickly corrected him. It had become a habit to correct him now, even though this only was the third time I’d talked with him. “Please just make an effort and try to remember it. That would be nice.”

The other male flashed a smile at me. “But your name is so long. I will never be able to remember the whole thing, so you need a nickname.”

A nickname? No one had ever given me a nickname before, only Seungho, but his nicknames for me changed constantly; he only used them when he wanted to tease me.

“I’ll call you …” Jinki thoughtfully put his index finger to his lower lip, “Cha-Su!”

“Cha-Su?” I asked confused. ‘Cha-Su’ sounded weird. It sounded like a pet name. Why not just called me by my name? That would be so much easier and then he would probably remember my name at some point. “I don’t quite like it …”

“You don’t?” Jinki quickly questioned. “I do. You can call me Dubu then.”

“Dubu?” I asked. “Where do you get all these weird nicknames from?”

“Friends, my brain,” he quickly brushed it off. “Let’s go in.”

It sounded more as a command than a question, which it probably should have been. I followed him though and soon after we were inside. We sat at the bar; Jinki had already ordered his first drink. I’d thanked no, I had to go to work tomorrow.

“So,” Jinki said as he received his drink, “you’re new here, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I confirmed and looked at him.

“That’s what I thought,” he moved his face closer to mine. “I haven’t seen you before, so I thought you looked kind of … interesting.”

I chuckled nervously, not knowing how to respond.

“Seriously,” Jinki’s eyes darted to different parts of my face. “Fascinating and interesting.”

I looked away from him, hoping he didn’t see the little blush slightly painting my cheeks. There weren’t that many people around and they were mostly men. A few of them looked at Jinki once in a while and I didn’t quite know how to explain the stares. They were kind of desperate or maybe even longingly.

“Why did you help me this morning?” Jinki continued the conversation, changing the subject. His eyes darted between me and the cocktail glass he had in his hands.

I shrugged. “You just kind of pulled me into it.” ‘Kind of’? Why am I suddenly so bad with words? I could slap myself for sounding so immature, but Jinki just laughed. He probably didn’t think about it.

“I’m sorry for that,” he put a hand on my back.

I was a little uncomfortable by the sudden skin ship. A man I barely knew touched my back in an affectionate way. Or that was the way I interpreted it. Shivers sent through my body at the touch. Jinki pulled his hand away quickly though.

“He was such a dickhead,” Jinki burst out as he sat the drink down again after taking a sip.

“Who was?” I asked slightly confused.

“Taemin,” he said and his gaze shifted to my face again, “the boy who screamed at me this morning.”

“Why?” I met his gaze. I already felt a little uncomfortable by the situation, but my eyes didn’t want to move away. “He seemed like a nice guy. Maybe a little impolite and rude, but everybody has their bad points.”

“That’s true,” Jinki nodded in agreement and unlocked our gazes. He went to look at his fingers instead. He smiled as he continued: “Taemin was a nice guy. He treated me well. I liked him at first, but then …”

I expected the worst when he slowed down. Did Taemin abuse him? Did he cheat on him? Was it something like that? “Then what?”

Jinki faced me and I saw the sad smile he wore. “Then he became too nice.”

I didn’t quite understand what he meant and must have worn an unreadable expression mixed with some confusion. He continued on his own accord.

“He suddenly changed. He began to comply with everything I asked him to do. ‘Taemin do the dishes,’ and ‘Taemin, stop teasing.’ He would comply with everything. In the end it felt like I was his mother or if I was babysitting him. It got really awkward for me.”

I tried to comprehend what he was telling me. His boyfriend was too nice? I would love if I had a girlfriend who was “too nice”.

“I don’t really see the problem,” I said honestly. “But I do understand how it would feel like to be in a relationship which felt like a babysitting job.”

I’d even done that. When I was younger I’d once kissed a girl whom I babysat. I wasn’t that old and she was only a year younger than me. The neighbor back then told me to keep an eye on their daughter, only an hour or so. I would earn a few bills for it, so of course I did it. But she was the one who’d intended to do the kiss. I was paralyzed.

“It became too boring,” Jinki tried to explain it in another way. “There was nothing exciting about it anymore. Every day when I got home he would be there. He welcomed me, made dinner for me, had prepared a bath for me. He was like a housewife. A boring old fashioned housewife. We would always end up ing in the evening, but that was boring too.”

The subject changing to their life was embarrassing for me to listen to. Even though it wasn’t packed with a lot of information it was still weird to talk about with a complete stranger. I didn’t mention my non-existing life, because Jinki obviously had a lot to share.

“Then he had to go on this business trip,” Jinki continued and I cut him off.

“I remember you saying something about that.”

“Yeah. So while he was on that business trip I accidentally hooked up with one of our close friends. It probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but I got the excitement back.”

I didn’t know where to look and ended up by looking at Jinki’s hands. “Did your boyfriend know you cheated on him?”

“Taemin?” he questioned. “No, he didn’t know. I stopped the relationship with Jonghyun when Taemin returned.”

“Do you feel bad about what you did?” my eyes were still fixated on Jinki’s hands. They looked nice and soft.

Jinki laughed uncomfortable. “You sound like a therapist.”

“Sorry.”

“I don’t really feel bad about it.”

“Why?”

“Because I would have broken up with him sooner or later anyway. I’m bad at relationships.”

I looked at him and saw that he was wearing a sad smile. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s okay,” he assured me. “I don’t like to bond with people for too long.”

After that there was an awkward silence; a silence between the two of us, but the entire room was filled with music and people chatting and laughing with each other. The fun thing about this place was that there only were males in here. There were Korean and foreign males.

“Hey!” it got heard got heard from behind. Both of us turned around to see who was coming. A short male with his hair styled upwards. He looked fashionable; a pair of white jeans and a black button shirt.

“Oh, hey,” Jinki greeted rather halfheartedly.

The short guy eyed me and stuck his tongue out through his mouth and bit it shortly as he glanced up and down of my body. I shrank under his stare, he judged me and I didn’t like it.

“And who’s this cutie?” I could clearly see the excitement in his eyes. He his lips and got a more lustful expression.

“Just knock it off Jonghyun,” Jinki sighed and turned back to his drink. “He’s obviously as straight as a pole.”

He glanced one last time at me before his gaze switched to Jinki’s back. “You don’t know that. He could be biual and, you know, I’m always fresh for a .”

“Keep on dreaming,” was Jinki’s reply.

The short male’s lustful eyes fixated on me again. “Hi, I’m Jonghyun. Pleased to meet you.”

I grabbed the hand he offered me. “Lee Changsun.”

“Just call him Cha-Su,” Jinki informed.

“Why?” Jonghyun asked. “I like his name. Lee Changsun. That would be the most thing I’ve screamed while someone’s pounding into my .” The back of his hand went up to caress the side of my face. I trembled under his touch.

“Jonghyun,” Jinki said rather warning, “don’t scare him.”

Jonghyun totally ignored Jinki’s warning and went on with the nauseous flirting. “If you were the sun, I’d let you melt my ice cream, making it leak down my hand and then I’d it up.”

“Like the you are,” a muffled comment came from Jinki.

“Hey!” Jonghyun protested and removed his hand from my face. “Watch your mouth!”

I felt a comforting hand on my shoulder. The hand belonged to Jinki. My attention went from the , short guy to Jinki. He had a comfortable smile attached to his lips. “He won’t do anything, unless you let him. He’s harmless.”

Jonghyun stuck his tongue out at Jinki like the child he seemed to be. “You just wish it was you who’re going to pound into my tonight.”

Jinki laughed at that.

Jonghyun went to sit beside Jinki and that made me let a sigh of relief out. I would have been unbelievingly tense if Jonghyun had sat beside me.

“It’s quiet tonight, huh?” Jonghyun exclaimed after the silence had become awkward.

“Jonghyun,” Jinki sighed, “sorry, but I don’t feel like being around you right now. I just broke up with Taemin so it would be nice if you would leave me alone.”

“You broke up with Taemin?” Jonghyun asked obviously surprised. “Then what the hell are we doing here when we could be at my place and make a smoking hot ?”

Jinki sighed again. I couldn’t believe that they were friends. Jonghyun seemed like the touchy and annoying friend who you just want to leave, but can be nice sometimes too. Not that I can see Jonghyun as anything else than .

I felt like saving Jinki again. It seemed like he hated the mere existence of Jonghyun at that moment. I quickly looked around in the room we were in. My eyes fell on a male – of course – with slightly long hair. It looked like he had big eyes and he seemed tall.

“Jonghyun?” I asked before Jinki would say anything stupid to his annoying friend. I quickly got Jonghyun’s attention and pointed at the dark Korean man standing not so far away. “Why don’t you go over and talk with him? He seems …” I didn’t know exactly which word I should use for the other man. I ended my sentence: “Like someone who can satisfy your needs.”

Jonghyun’s gaze shifted to the guy and his eyes locked on him. “I knew you weren’t straight Lee Changsun. And now I have to excuse myself; the unbelievingly handsome man over there, needs my assistance.”

And then he dashed off.

“Thanks,” Jinki said a little while later after he’d ordered his second drink.

“Don’t worry about it.”

While the bartender was close to us I ordered a small drink. The only thought I had was ‘why not?’

We didn’t really talk the rest of the evening. We just sat quietly and drank our drinks. Jinki sent a few shy smiles in my direction and I returned them. It looked like the tall man was just perfect for Jonghyun. I wasn’t quite sure if the Korean man I’d told Jonghyun to go to actually was homoual, but that wasn’t my problem.

A few other men had walked up to Jinki and whispered a few things – which I couldn’t hear – to him, but Jinki either just smiled or told them to ‘ off’.

When the clock almost had passed midnight Jinki asked me if we should go home. I gladly accepted.

When we were outside the building there was an awkward silence between us.  Not many people were on the streets this late at night when it was a normal workday the following day.

“It was nice meeting you Cha-Su,” Jinki started. He pulled a cigarette packet up from his pocket of his coat. He lit it on.

I still wasn’t fond of the name ‘Cha-Su’, buy it had a different feeling when Jinki said it. And to mention the smoking I didn’t really care. I was a party-smoker myself, but hadn’t been able to smoke for a while now, so I inhaled the smoke I could inhale from his cigarette.

“You too,” was my response.

Jinki put the cigarette to his lips; in, breathed out. I filled my nostrils with the soothing smell of nicotine.

“See you some other time?”

I wasn’t quite sure if it was a question or a statement he made, but just the thought about him wanting to meet up again, warmed my heart.

“Sure,” I said and smiled slightly.

He smiled back. He inhaled one more time and let go of the smoke. He extended his arm to offer me the cigarette. I only looked at it.

“Just take it,” Jinki said and nodded at the item in his hand. “I have plenty.”

I bowed slightly and accepted the smoke. He smiled.

He turned around and walked away, leaving me alone with the already lit cigarette.

“I have your number,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll text you some time!”

And then he turned around a corner.

I stood there with the half smoked cigarette between my fingers, feeling how it fit the space between my fingers perfectly. I put the smoke to my lips and in. The nicotine instantly rushed through my veins.

Just text me Jinki. You’ll get a reply as fast as possible.

A/N: I'm so sorry ;~; I'm so terrible sorry T^T But here it is (without the poster) and I hope you enjoyed the story :)

And for the people who asked: Itaewon is a South Korean district in Seoul. There are a lot of gay bars there, and there lives a lot of gays too. There also lives a lot of foreign people there, if I remember correctly ;)

Please comment ^^