"If you have a choice in not having a choice about coming,” Fu Meng-po says, eyebrows cocked out from behind the frame of his sunglasses, “then it's not a kidnapping."
“You’re not fun,” Kuan-hung complains. “At all.”
Notes
Imported from Archive of Our Own. Original work id: 31222151.
The first thing Kuan-hung does once he’s disembarked his Shanghai Pudong-Kaohsiung flight is snap a picture of the gate from halfway down the jet bridge. There's a glare blotting out the upper corner from the midmorning sun streaming through, but he's not looking to capture the perfect shot. He’s not even looking to get a good shot— just a shot, any shot, will do, for the moment he’s far enough up from the plane that he can log into the wi-fi.
It’s not bustling, not like Taoyuan, but that suits Kuan-hung, here, just fine. It gives him a moment to idle around once the ramp has fed him out into open floor space without the worry that he’s obstructing foot traffic. If anyone gives him a double-take, self-cordoned as he is just off-frame, sunglasses pushed up high on the bridge of his nose and thumb toying with the loop string of his mask while he taps one-handed at his touchscreen, he doesn’t see it.
He works through his top nested WeChats, sends the image to each one sans any extrapolative context, then closes out of the app to switch his eSIM profile over to his local number and turn off DND. By the time he’s gotten through the arrivals lounge and is flagging down his transfer, his phone has buzzed against his thigh several times, but he keeps his hand clasped over it on the outside of his sweats until he’s finally sitting down before he caves in and checks his notifications.
There’s a new message in his ridiculously named group chat with Fu Meng-po, sitting somewhere in the middle of the pack of all of the rest of his threads. Kuan-hung opens that one first.
Fu Meng-po must have his own phone in-hand, or be bogged down with a lot of free time, because Kuan-hung’s barely got his seatbelt buckled up before his ringtone starts blaring, the speaker palm-muffled.
“No, call me back later,” is his hello once he’s answered and put his phone to his ear, all smiles and faux-dismissive distraction. “I haven’t finished catching up on all your posts yet.” Which is technically true; he hasn’t even opened anything yet that he usually can’t when freelancing to his own devices behind the great firewall. It’s also not at all important, given he’s got the real thing here live and on the air.
“There’s nothing good there,” Fu Meng-po says, never missing a beat, per usual. It’s hard to make out where he might be, with all his own surround sound, so Kuan-hung doesn’t try too much to plot and place him. “How long are you over for?”
“A week,” Kuan-hung tells him. That’s the sum of all parts of the plan, anyway.
He glances outside while he swaps his phone over to his other ear, squinting against the tint of his sunglasses and the pane. It’s not a far drive between the international terminal and Qianzhen District. He might end up talking with Fu Meng-po for the entirety of it.
There’s a crackling in the background, like Fu Meng-po is turning a page over, maybe, or opening something. “Any plans?”
“Not really.” Kuan-hung pins his phone between his ear and shoulder so he can push his sunglasses up just high enough to scrub over his eyes. Not at all, if he’s honest, but even in his head that doesn’t sound like something he should just say.
“Called your parents?”
Kuan-hung takes a bit too long, he’s self-aware enough to think, to find a committal answer that’s good enough to ring soundly true. “I messaged my sister,” he says. She’d been one of the WeChats he’d hit with his terminal snap. “I’ll call them when I’m checked in.” He intends to, anyway. He’s never intended to not let them know he’s home, however temporarily, it’s just— it’s a conversation he has to build himself up to.
Fu Meng-po doesn’t linger on it, if it even trips him up at all as awkward in the first place. He just breezes on through with a sigh, audible through the receiver. "I'm around. Put your hotel in the chat, I'll come pick you up."
"Uh," Kuan-hung stalls out, blinking. "You know, that doesn't sound like you're giving me a choice."
Fu Meng-po hums. "Do you want one?"
Well. Well, no. Kuan-hung takes a breath that he hopes doesn't tear out as loudly in Fu Meng-po's ear as it does his own. "Not really," he admits. Even if he had one, he'd probably choose this, anyway. Even without knowing any particulars. Still, "Where are you taking me?"
“Spending a few days in Yuchi.” Kuan-hung hears the rattle of keys, then the clap of a door thudding shut in the distance. “I can take you up to your parents’, after.”
“Sure.” Kuan-hung rights his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose, then tweaks at the loops of his mask, fixing them behind his ears. His chest feels fluttery-light. It’s a little dizzying; discomforting. “Okay. Yeah. I’m at Silks Club.”
“Fancy,” Fu Meng-po comments, chuckle-bright. It’s a perfectly fair remark — probably too fair. “All right. Be there in a few hours. See you soon.”
“Bai bai la.” Kung-hung moves his thumb into place to end the call, but it’s Fu Meng-po who hangs up, first, before he brings himself around to it. He pulls his phone back down from his ear and swipes the screen to close out of the app, then holds it in between a loose steeple of his hands, tucked between his knees, for a minute, two, until he sees Kaisyuan Station pass by out of the corner of his eye, on his other side.
Kuan-hung unlocks his phone, braces his elbows on the table of his thighs, then folds in on himself to type.
He gets himself not to expect a reply any time soon, which is good, because Fu Meng-po keeps him waiting. Kuan-hung is patiently propped up by the elbows over the high-flung counter of the Silks’ lobby reception when he sees the push notification marquee drop down on his unlocked screen, eating up a third of his pulled-up reservation. He swipes it away without reading it, then turns his phone back around for the clerk to better read the email, just in case.
Once his keycard is burning a hole in his pocket, he opens Fu Meng-po’s message up properly, making sure to keep himself close to the wall so he’s not milling around in front of anyone who might want to overtake him.
It occurs to him, not for the first time in as many minutes, as he gets in the door of his suite, that it’s a tremendous waste of space and place to be holing up in for a few hours only to leave again. It’s a smaller space than he’d usually book, but it still feels too big, emptied out, without the entourage he’s used to having in tow for company.
Kuan-hung doesn’t really want to touch anything, even though he knows that it will all have to be cleaned, anyway, regardless of his interference, so he settles for the compromise of being as unobtrusive as possible. Shoes kicked off at the door; jacket hung up; complimentary slippers on. He drags up his suitcase to the foot of the king bed, locks the wheels, then drops into a crouch to scrounge around one of the front zip pockets for his phone charger. Fu Meng-po said he’d be a few hours, which feels both at once like a lot of time and not enough time at all. Either way, Kuan-hung isn’t sure what to do with himself for any of it beyond the abstract of whiling idle. He doesn't want to shower, and eating isn't holding much more appeal.
That leaves him with his phone, then, he supposes. Kuan-hung plugs everything in, then flops down on the all too big for him bed, sinking into the duvet as he lets his slippers slide back off his feet. He sends a message to his sister, first, just to let her know where he's headed. He checks Weibo; he'd set a moratorium on no activity, work-esque or otherwise, on any of his rotation of platforms for twenty-four hours after landing, but that doesn't mean he can't lurk.
He might stretch the definition of lurk wafer thin when he opens Instagram and likes a few posts, but he made the rules, so he can break the rules. That's how it works.
He'll call his parents in a moment. A minute. Kuan-hung lowers his phone to his chest and pulls in a deep breath, mustering himself.
Kuan-hung’s ringtone and the rumble of his phone against the flat of his sternum almost sends him — and it, by associative momentum — flying off the bed. Kuan-hung scrambles up in a harried daze; just barely makes out Fu Meng-po’s name on his screen as he tries to get his hands to work enough through the heavy fog curtain of his roused sleep to answer the call before it rings out.
“I fell asleep,” he manages, skipping past all the niceties, tongue-tied and reedy-raw, “shit, sorry, I.” He clears his throat, then tries to swallow. He feels hemmed in somewhere tight and suffocating; his saliva lodges somewhere mid-throat, knot hard.
“Easy,” comes Fu Meng-po’s voice back through the receiver, calm as can be. “You need five?”
“I need fifty,” Kuan-hung blurts out, yanking his charger free of the socket while he toes around the floor, blind, looking for his slippers to slide his feet back into. “No, I’m. Where are you?”
Fu Meng-po’s breath gusts out, rough, like he’s biting back a laugh, or something along the lines of it. There's the percussion of bustling people and city noise playing out as a backtrack to his voice, just dimmed out. “Just outside. Come out, cross at the closest corner, you’ll see Yang’s. I’ll meet you there.”
“All right.” Kuan-hung gets himself upright, charger bundled up in-hand, slippers mostly on-foot. “All right, I’m. Almost there.” He takes a sharp breath in. “I haven’t showered. I haven’t anything. You can’t mention it. Don’t look at me.”
"Take your time," Fu Meng-po tells him, unruffled.
"I won't," Kuan-hung says. "See you soon." He’s the one to hang up first, this time. It treats him to a full-frontal view of all his missed call and group chat message notifications before he can stuff his phone into his pocket. It doesn’t feel good to narrow in on the timestamps and realise Fu Meng-po has spent the better part of a half-hour trying to rouse him. It feels worse that Fu Meng-po doesn’t seem to be at all ruffled by the lapse in thoughtfulness. Kuan-hung would have been scaling the walls after five minutes.
He tries to gather himself and his breath when he’s hauled himself at speed back down to the lobby, pausing and running his fingers through his hair while aside one of the many reflective surfaces until he thinks it passes well enough for purposefully tousled. Fu Meng-po has seen him looking a world of a lot worse, both in and out of on-work conditions and caveats, but still. Kuan-hung’s packed filming schedule is now drawn up to a halt, so it’s no longer an easy out for him to blame his bruising and discomposure on. It also means he has no makeup jiejies and geges around to pretty him up fit for public consumption.
It’s warmed up, outside, enough that Kuan-hung stops himself while still under the shade of the hotel’s overhang to strip his jacket, turning out the pockets to make sure he’s not leaving anything important in them before he packs it away. While he’s crouched down, he spares another moment to push his sunglasses up, too, so he can swipe at the sweat beading up against the rim and bridge of the frame and readjust his mask. With that, there’s nothing else in his repertoire to procrastinate either with or on — he’s looking as good as he’s going to look and getting as good as he’s going to get — so he rights himself and trundles off not-too-quickly to the crossing.
It’s not hard to spot Fu Meng-po from a distance, but for no special stand-out reason beyond there not being very many people hanging around Yang’s on the early side of midday. He’s wearing one of his many obnoxiously patterned button-up shirts that makes him so obvious he loops right back around to blending in, and he spots Kuan-hung almost as quickly as Kuan-hung spots him.
Kuan-hung is struck with the truly ridiculous thought that he has no actual idea what to do with Fu Meng-po now he’s got him here. It brings a baffled smile to his lips, which then breaks out into a full-fledged grin when Fu Meng-po redundantly hails him down with one hand as he lopes over to meet him midway. He’s glad the brunt of it is hidden behind his sunglasses and mask, though there’s surely no way Fu Meng-po can miss how his brow is crinkling with it, just like how he can tell Fu Meng-po is smiling in some sort of way at him, too, even behind his own obfuscating mask and sunglasses get-up.
“Xingnan-ge,” Kuan-hung stalls by way of greeting, leaning into the drawl of it, and then he doesn’t need to stall at all, anymore, to figure out what comes next, because Fu Meng-po is folding his hand over the back of his neck, fingers dipping beneath his collar as he squeezes down and gives Kuan-hung a shake.
“xiao Kuan,” Fu Meng-po teases back, leaning around him to jig the handle of his suitcase out of his grip. The pad of his thumb hooks down on Kuan-hung’s neck when he straightens, kneading over the jump of his pulse. “Not bad.”
“What’s not bad?” Kuan-hung finds himself asking as he’s tucked in against Fu Meng-po’s side. He slips his now emptied out hands into his pockets as Fu Meng-po turns him at the neck and starts steering them both back the way he came. His palm is clammy-warm with sweat; Kuan-hung arcs up into it with a shiver despite himself.
“You,” Fu Meng-po says, punctuating it with another shake that pushes Kuan-hung out from his side and pulls him back in flush so whip crack-quick that his head reels after the flow of it for a beat. “You look fine.”
“You haven’t seen the rest of me yet,” Kuan-hung objects, to his immediate and immense regret.
He feels Fu Meng-po’s laugh pressed into his side as much as he hears it, a rich rumble of a thing. “You look fine,” he repeats, and Kuan-hung decides to let him have the last word of it. Before he lets something even stupider slip.
They pass by Yang’s, and Fu Meng-po leans up against him, shepherding him left, down the one-lane alley cinched between the buildings. Kuan-hung can see Fu Meng-po’s Jeep, parked in one of the sparse spots littering the long lone line of bitumen.
“No Cool-ge?” he asks.
“Not for Yuchi,” Fu Meng-po answers.
“Oh,” says Kuan-hung simply, “I’m leaving, then.” He means to make a show of trying to squirm out from underneath Fu Meng-po’s grip, but it switches gears into a brief but valiant and entirely legitimate attempt when Fu Meng-po tightens the collar of his fingers, wringing out a yelp.
“No, you're not.” Fu Meng-po releases his neck with a little spurring nudge.
Kuan-hung tugs his hands out of his pockets and slants forward, pantomiming catching himself against the door. “Help!” he cries out, but he keeps it low enough that it's just for Fu Meng-po. The last thing he's in it for is to attract more attention than the amount he's already holding, let alone actual assistance.
Fu Meng-po pulls the driver’s side door open and Kuan-hung hears his own unlock. "Get in the car," he tells him serenely.
Kuan-hung watches him through the window as he turns away. "I’m putting in a lot of the work for my own kidnapping,” he notes while he nonetheless obeys, clambering inside.
The back passenger door opens. "You're not getting kidnapped," Fu Meng-po says distractedly. Kuan-hung glances over his shoulder to watch Fu Meng-po heft his suitcase up onto the seat one-handed.
"I feel like not having a choice about coming makes it a kidnapping," Kuan-hung points out.
Fu Meng-po seems to be holding on to his reply until he's sitting down, so Kuan-hung takes the opportunity to buckle his seatbelt and kick off his shoes beneath the dash. He folds his knees up and goes cross-legged just as he hears the door clap shut, and meets Fu Meng-po’s eyes when he looks up.
"If you have a choice in not having a choice about coming,” Fu Meng-po says, eyebrows cocked out from behind the frame of his sunglasses, “then it's not a kidnapping."
“You’re not fun,” Kuan-hung complains. “At all.”
Fu Meng-po laughs, turning away. “But you’re here,” he replies, like a gotcha, as he pulls off his mask. Kuan-hung follows his lead, reminded.
“I am here,” he says. “Here to not have fun.”
“You won’t be disappointed, then,” Fu Meng-po remarks, wry. “Watch your head.”
Kuan-hung does, going as far as to duck forward, just a bit, as Fu Meng-po reaches over to brace his hand behind the back of Kuan-hung’s seat, twisting to follow it, gaze tossed out through the rear window. Kuan-hung follows the line of Fu Meng-po’s arm, the flex as the corded muscle draws taut, before he looks away, locks his gaze head-on. There’s nothing wrong with looking, he just— doesn’t want to, right now, in this moment. And that’s fine. If there’s no shame in looking, it stands to reason that there must be no shame in looking away, either.
“There.” Fu Meng-po falls away from behind him, and Kuan-hung sees his hands close over the steering wheel, down in the blur-fraying edge of his periphery. “Good?”
It could mean anything. “Not bad,” Kuan-hung says back, which could mean anything, too. He closes his eyes; sinks back into his seat, lets his sigh seep out, wide-open and unguarded.
“How have you been?” Fu Meng-po asks him, sometime after. It could be a moment, a minute, more, for all Kuan-hung knows. Eyes closed, only the drift of the drive to go on that anything is passing on forward at all, time or them or otherwise.
“Tired,” Kuan-hung answers, smiling tentatively around the acknowledgement. He folds his hands into his lap, and tips his head towards Fu Meng-po, eyes fluttering open, neck arching up his headrest. “You?”
Fu Meng-po’s mouth twinges around a smile of his own, softened. “Bit tired, too.”
Kuan-hung turns his face back away, rolling to angle himself towards his window. “Is Yuchi work?” he has the presence of mind to ask. Not that it, well. It matters, but it’s too late, now, if he’s interrupting something: Fu Meng-po has already decided for him that he won’t be an intrusion, if it’s the case. But he’d like to know, anyway, just to have it to tuck away somewhere.
“Sort of.” Fu Meng-po pauses for a moment, then, “More than not.” It’s a bit more definite an answer, but only just. It’s enough, anyway, for Kuan-hung to have something to ponder. “Let me know if you need to stop. Change the radio, too, if you want.”
The conversation peters out, after that, to their comfortable, natural quiet. Kuan-hung has to wonder how he was ever worried at all, even the slightest bit, that it would be different. Some things change, but Fu Meng-po is an endurant constant. Rooted in, sure of himself. The coolest of my friends, Kuan-hung had said, once. Who I think I want to be, eventually, he hasn’t admitted aloud. Not properly, anyway. Not yet.
The line between be and be with thins out to a messy, all-too-complicated non-existence when it comes down to— this. He needs more time with it. He needs more of a lot of things.
It seems like they’ve only just gotten out past the outskirts of Kaohsiung when Fu Meng-po turns off the freeway into Gukeng. He forgets, sometimes, just how small home is, up until the moment he’s back here, moving through it. Kuan-hung perks up and out of the daze of watching the scenery scroll at the unexpected switch, stifling a yawn within the tight-lipped clench of his jaw as he stretches his arms up, shrugging the torpor off.
"What's up?" he pries, tossing a look over at the driver’s side. He sees Fu Meng-po's eyes dart behind the frames of his sunglasses, listing to Kuan-hung in his periphery before he slots his stare back on the road ahead.
"Nothing," he says, in a shrug of a voice, casual and unpressed. "Been driving for a while. Don't want to drop off on the road."
"Oh," Kuan-hung replies. "Yeah, fair. Okay."
The rest station isn't all that much further from the exit. Fu Meng-po pulls up to a stop almost as soon as he's in the parking lot. Kuan-hung swivels his head around, giving a squinting once-over to their surrounds through the Jeep's tinted windows.
"Want anything?" Fu Meng-po asks, unbuckling his seatbelt.
“You keep asking that.” Kuan-hung rolls his bottom lip between his teeth as he unbuckles himself, leashing the awkward curl of his smile as he turns to face Fu Meng-po again. “Still no.”
“Might catch you out changing your mind yet,” Fu Meng-po quips back.
“Keep hoping!” Kuan-hung says brightly, smile surging to the fore of his mouth. “Jiayou!”
Fu Meng-po clenches his fist, giving it a consolatory pump in Kuan-hung’s direction as he starts to climb out of the Jeep, and Kuan-hung tries but does not particularly succeed in muffling his ugly snort-laugh with the back of his hand.
Left alone to his own devices, as it turns out, just leaves him a hollowed-out sort of inert. Kuan-hung opens WeChat and closes it again, a few times, in variations of inattentive and indeliberate, before he finally tabs over to his chat with Fu Meng-po. He opens up the listing Fu Meng-po sent him and reads it over. It looks quaint — what people might call quaint, anyway, if they were passing through.
It looks like something he thinks Fu Meng-po might pick for himself. Surrounded by forest; close-by to the lake, one of the temples. A snapshot of emulated rusticly historic countryside with wi-fi to bring it up to the modern-day present. Kuan-hung definitely sees a few dogs in some of the outdoor pictures. A cat, too.
He closes the listing before looking into the rooms, setting his phone face-down on his thigh. He’ll look at the actual rooms on offer in a minute, just— it keeps catching in his head, what Fu Meng-po said, about not wanting to drop off on the road. Fu Meng-po hadn’t said anything earlier save that he was around. Hadn’t gone into it past that he’d be taking Kuan-hung to Yuchi.
It’s not panic making his throat all gripped-tight — he doesn’t want to call it panic. But Kuan-hung feels himself running a little cold, and his breath coming a little quicker, as he turns his phone back over, reopens their group chat, and scrolls his way back up to his snap of the arrivals gate. He picks over their few text exchanges; rattles through what he can rummage back together of their phone call. There’s nothing that stands out to him that might be— that could be seen as a concern. That could be saying something that Kuan-hung isn’t quite ready to say.
Maybe that’s why Fu Meng-po is here, though: he’s pretty good at reading between Kuan-hung’s lines. And there’s a lot being telegraphed in Kuan-hung’s unsaid that he can appreciate might be seen as a series of red flag warning signs, sure, but he’s fine. Getting the first flight out, that just so happened to be in Shanghai, was not a cry for help. He was simply recognising his own encroaching burnout. He is practicing intuitive self care. His scripts are in his suitcase! People know where he is! The degree of arrangement undertaken undercuts the supposed salt-sowing spontaneity!
...He’s so apparently well-adjusted that Fu Meng-po is going out of his way — to the tune of a five hour round trip — to loop Kuan-hung in on whatever he’s doing and keep him company. That’s. That’s, just. Great. What is he supposed to do with that? What can he even do with that?
Not a lot. Nothing at all. Kuan-hung tries to school himself into something that, barring calm, is at least not overtly nervous, or guilty. He still all but jumps in his seat, anyway, almost kneeing his phone out of his lap and onto the floor, when the driver’s side door opens.
Fu Meng-po ducks his head in and holds something out across the seats, only half-looking. “Here.”
Kuan-hung clears his throat while he takes a moment to set his phone down carefully in one of the cupholders. “You bought me something,” he points out. Fu Meng-po hums his affirmative, and Kuan-hung reaches over and takes the packet off his hands, turning it over. They’re glutinous rice strips, a brand he buys sometimes — not a lot, not his preferred, but good in a pinch if he has a blue moon craving and they’re what’s available.
“I did.” Kuan-hung hears the door shut again, and he glances up just as Fu Meng-po sets a water bottle down in the other cupholder, by Kuan-hung’s phone. He pulls his sunglasses off, running a hand through his hair to comb it back from his face, then throws Kuan-hung a look. “Is it the right one?”
Kuan-hung looks back down at it. “I didn’t want anything,” he reminds Fu Meng-po. He’s trying for a sulky tease, but it comes out a little too— touched. Or maybe he’s just overthinking it, now, even more, what with, well, everything. “It’s good, it’s fine, I eat these.”
“It looked familiar,” Fu Meng-po replies absently. “The packaging. There’s water, too.”
Kuan-hung thumbs at the corner of the wrapper, then commits to placing the packet on the floor beneath his seat, for now. “I’m good,” he says, uselessly, really, he thinks, filling a space that doesn’t need to be filled.
Fu Meng-po locks the doors, then settles back in his seat, adjusting it back to put him on a slight angle. He closes his eyes; folds his hands together over his chest. Kuan-hung’s eyes track the absent twitch of his laced fingers; trail off to the way his shirt is popping between the buttons where the fabric is drawn taut over his chest.
“Give me thirty,” he mumbles over to Kuan-hung, before he sighs out softly. “You need the radio on?”
“I think I can entertain myself for that long,” Kuan-hung scoffs at him, sardonic. He’s smiling too much into it, though, to make it stick the landing. It’s strangely sweet, and more than a little funny, that Fu Meng-po thinks he needs to provide enclosure enrichment activities for him in the Jeep for a half-hour of stationary downtime. But he’d think Kuan-hung would need to be accommodated regardless of whether or not he was also, maybe, handling him with gloves on, like a vulnerable thing. Fu Meng-po is… it’s just the way he is. That’s all there is to it. That’s all Kuan-hung has for it; that’s all he’s ever needed for it.
Kuan-hung tries to get comfortable, as courteously quiet as he can manage. He fishes his phone out of the cupholder, holding in the worst of his hiss when the hardcase clacks loudly against the console casing. He opens his apps, cycling through them, aware of the way his legs are cramping from being tucked underneath him, the squeak of the upholstery when he shifts, how his breaths seem to fill out the whole car, drowning out Fu Meng-po’s. He swears he spends at least ten minutes in that, but his clock display is saying otherwise.
He sets his phone back down, wincing, again, as it bangs around like a mallet to a gong. He tries to sink back into his chair, closing his eyes with a sigh through his nose.
Kuan-hung is honestly not all that sure how long he manages like that before he hears Fu Meng-po move around, his breath kicking up. “Sorry,” Kuan-hung preempts, in a way he hopes translates as appropriately contrite. He certainly isn’t feeling rested; he imagines the run-off of his disruptions is having much the same effect on Fu Meng-po.
“You’re good.” Fu Meng-po trails off into a yawn. His voice is low, gravel-rough from where he’s scraped up close to sleep.
“I can’t.” Kuan-hung stops himself with a huff, wrenching his hands out of his lap to gesture, vaguely, towards nothing in particular. When his glance darts off to the side, unbidden, he catches that Fu Meng-po has opened his eyes, now, too, and is watching him with a languid, half-lidded stare.
"Can't?" Fu Meng-po prompts, and Kuan-hung startles, his cheeks blushing bright red-hot.
"I can't—" what? He can't… what? Kuan-hung shoves his hands back into his lap roughly, rolling his thumb against his inseam while he flexes his fingers for focus' sake. "I can't get comfortable." Which is not untrue, however misleading it might be as long as it’s left unelaborated on.
Fu Meng-po, awfully, but not unexpectedly, really, starts angling himself up on his elbows, at that. “Come here,” he says, waving him over. Kuan-hung assumes, at least, it’s waving him over, from the loose fan of his fingers and how they furl in towards himself.
“What?” he says, still, even though he’s already shuffling over, anyway, to lean over between their seats. He doesn’t flinch back when Fu Meng-po’s fingers brush his cheek, by way of a bare miracle, and he manages, even, to not embarrass himself all that much, he thinks, complete with a convincing pout, as Fu Meng-po plucks his sunglasses off his face and stretches out just enough to set them down on the dash, next to his own.
“You want to sleep?” Fu Meng-po asks him, which answers Kuan-hung’s not-question, but also doesn’t, really. He sinks back into his seat, refolds his hands, but the lace of his fingers is loose, lazy.
“I’ve been sleeping a lot,” Kuan-hung acknowledges, because he feels like he should acknowledge that, maybe, somewhere. Sleeping more than his of-late usual, anyway. But, well, “I could sleep.”
Fu Meng-po opens his hands back up from themselves on his chest again, then reaches for him. “Then come here.” His palm flattens on Kuan-hung’s bicep, giving him a little spurring nudge, before he just takes the initiative of reeling Kuan-hung in the rest of the way. “Just lay down.”
“On you?” Kuan-hung doesn’t stutter, but it’s a near miss of a thing. He doesn’t take a lot of cajoling: one tug and he’s hoisting his midriff over the centre armrest and twisting over onto his side. Between the two of them, Kuan-hung manages to get himself in some sort of comfortable configuration, cheek pillowed in Fu Meng-po’s lap, knees drawn up in his own chair. The lid of the console is digging into his side, a bit, but it’s low-set, a tolerable enough discomfort for the payoff.
“On me,” Fu Meng-po says, now he’s already there. His hand comes to rest on Kuan-hung’s neck, thumb teasing at his hair.
Kuan-hung takes a deep breath, then sighs it out, trying to blanket his shiver. “I’m just going to annoy you more from down here,” he warns harriedly. Skirting towards a rambly panic. “I’ll keep moving around. I’m pointy.”
“Your cheekbones are so high,” Fu Meng-po agrees, nonchalant. His hand drifts up, just a fraction, and the pad of his thumb traces the shell of Kuan-hung’s ear in a leisurely swipe. “You’re fine. Just close your eyes for a bit. You’ll drop right off.”
“Well, now I won’t,” Kuan-hung mutters contrarily. But of course he closes his eyes just as he’s been told and promptly does.
Fu Meng-po’s fingers are curling under his jaw when Kuan-hung stirs, trying to coax him up. He’s saying something that’s not supposed to make sense, Kuan-hung thinks, because it’s all soft, sweet sound, and he’s not so groggy that he can’t make words out. He is groggy enough, though, or just— opportunistic, or opened up, or any combination of any manner of things, that he pushes his face up into the cup of Fu Meng-po’s palm. He can feel the crease on his cheek from his jeans. He can feel Fu Meng-po’s callouses catch on his lips when he purses them around his exhale.
He can hear the sound Fu Meng-po makes, too, when Kuan-hung wriggles further into his lap as he’s trying to get the memo down the chain of communication to the rest of his limbs that he’s awake, now, and it’s time to move. It is— it’s an unmistakable little gasp, sucked in. Shocked and hot and hungry. Kuan-hung is familiar with those sorts of sounds, most of all, maybe, when he’s got his head in someone’s lap. He’s good at making those sorts of sounds. He’s good at getting those sorts of sounds made.
He doesn’t— Kuan-hung doesn’t think. Or, he thinks so much he wraps himself right back around to a trembling blank slate state. There is so much in that sound to get his head around that he’s stopped still at the start. There’s too little in it to fill up the hole of want that’s dug into his body.
The moment goes on and on and on, and Kuan-hung doesn't dare breathe for the life and longevity of it. Not once, not throughout the hour-long seconds that it takes him to turn over, until he's no longer curled up facing the dashboard but tucked into Fu Meng-po’s lap improper.
It’s a mistake, or close enough to one to count, and he watches himself make it, anyway, detached, in high definition and surround sound, as he meets Fu Meng-po’s eyes and slowly, slowly stretches himself forward. He drags his cheek up Fu Meng-po’s thigh, the scuff of the coarse denim on his skin a vague pang that pierces the haze rolling through his head and runs his mouth dry. It takes him an age and it takes him no time at all, and then he’s nosing at Fu Meng-po’s zipper and Fu Meng-po is cupping the back of his neck, his fingers tightening down when Kuan-hung tries to jerk back into retreat, holding him in his place.
“Hey,” Fu Meng-po murmurs, “hey, hey,” and Kuan-hung stops trying to run, accepts that he can’t. He closes his eyes against it, anyway, as a final act. His chest feels so tight, wound up around a sob that won’t come out.
“You want this?” he asks him. It’s careful, soft. His thumb circles against Kuan-hung’s nape, toying with the downy hairs, and his fingers dip shallowly beneath the collar of his shirt. Kuan-hung feels his answering shiver ride over the trembles that have already seized him whole.
If he speaks, he thinks he might actually cry, if he doesn’t choke on trying, first. Then it won’t even matter what he wants. But he can nod, so he does, squeezing his eyes shut tighter as he bites at his lip. The pinch of pain reminds him that this isn’t a dream; that he really is this— irrationally irresponsible. And Fu Meng-po is folding it into his easy stride that is rapidly outpacing Kuan-hung’s already questionable control.
“Let me see.” Fu Meng-po’s fingers slide further in underneath his collar, fanning out, trailing heat down his spine. “Let me see how much.”
Kuan-hung knows what he’s really asking, beneath the almost-telling. He opens his eyes, still, despite it, and lets himself be seen. Tries to show, despite how he must look, that he’s sure. He's sure enough, as much as he can think to be. It’s all happening too much, and not enough.
Fu Meng-po’s expression is— Kuan-hung doesn't know what it is. Gentle and open but held back, too. Considering. It would be unnerving if he had any nerves left to be parted from, but Kuan-hung is past that, now, careened off into the thick of terrified excitement. He can't stop himself from shaking, but Fu Meng-po’s hand on his neck is evening it out to something more survivable, held in the check of his body.
"Up," Fu Meng-po says. "C'mon." His fingers slip back out from his shirt, and then the heft of his palm shifts to something urging, guiding him into lifting his head from Fu Meng-po’s thigh. Kuan-hung scrambles to follow, barely registering anything but that one touch, the dig of the armrest into him and the cramp that clenches up the backs of his thighs all dimmed down, faded out. He gets himself into a bowed kneel as best he can, one hand taking up a white-knuckled grip on Fu Meng-po’s knee for some sort of anchoring. The other tangles with Fu Meng-po’s as he reaches between them to take it in his own.
Kuan-hung watches, head down, with a distant disbelief, almost, as their fingers tangle together. Fu Meng-po tugs the join of them further into his lap, and Kuan-hung feels the pant of his breath gust his hair as they both fumble with the button and then his zipper until they’re undone. Fu Meng-po’s hand slips from his neck to palm his cheek, and he makes a small shushing sound, presumptive, when he starts to lift Kuan-hung up, just the slightest bit. Kuan-hung makes the sound, anyway, that Fu Meng-po preempts; something needy that catches in his throat when it is angled out of the way of the flat of Fu Meng-po’s thigh. He tries to dip his chin again, to watch, through the blur hemming his eyes and the fan of his lashes, when Fu Meng-po’s thigh flexes taut, when it arches to follow the rise of his hips.
Fu Meng-po wriggles, huffs, curses out something that’s all roughened profane, and then he’s settling back down and leading Kuan-hung in to follow, the waistband of his jeans ridden down just enough to free the bulge of his cock. Kuan-hung makes another sound as he takes in how it looks, a wrecked little whine that’s equal parts intimidated and intrigued. He’s already so huge, and barely even hard, and it isn’t as if Kuan-hung didn’t know this before now, just — it’s different, when it’s with hope but without intent. He's seen it in glimpses of undress; had it pushed and pressed against him in glances, brushes and embraces. It's just something that happens when you're close, in contact. When you're working together and living together by extension in tight-knit spaces. You see and you touch and maybe you wonder, just a little bit, as to what it might be like if there was more. If there was purpose; if it was all something meant.
He's seen Fu Meng-po, and Fu Meng-po has seen him, and it hasn't been anything so momentous before. It hasn’t been real while it has remained unacknowledged. But he’s overthinking the actuality of it, he knows; trying to talk himself back out of somewhere that’s past any point of return. He’s here midway, whatever the impulse that has carried him may be or mean, and he might as well follow through. It can’t be worse than a half-done, a not-knowing. Kuan-hung leans in, and in, and in, feeling too keyed up and locked into the tight fit of his body. Fu Meng-po’s hand slips from his cheek, spills over back to his neck, then settles there with a flinching scratch of his blunt nails to skin as Kuan-hung mouths tentatively at him through his briefs.
Fu Meng-po breathes out, harsh, tight, but his grip gentles out with the beat of it, fingers petting tender circles over and across his skin. Kuan-hung feels held in and down, but not trapped, not urged or caught, just, left to take his sweet time and set his slow pace as he laps and mouths at Fu Meng-po’s cock. It’s not a good position for him to leverage himself in, but he makes do with what he’s been given, folding his other arm up to brace over Fu Meng-po’s thighs as he closes his eyes and tries to fall forward into it. Tries to shut out everything else from his focus but the work of his jaw, the drag of his lips and tongue, the heady weight as Fu Meng-po twitches against his parted mouth, swells thick, pushes up into his face.
Fu Meng-po’s other hand finds him again, fitting itself in between his thigh and Kuan-hung’s head to cradle his cheek, and he says something that might not be something at all for how Kuan-hung can make no sense of it, the pad of his thumb brushing at the corner of his mouth where it’s stretched wide. His heart is hammering so hard against his ribs he feels like it’s about to break out; the rush of his blood is static in his ears, and he can’t breathe through any of it. Kuan-hung moans out, raw, then noses in tighter, sucking and kissing at Fu Meng-po’s shaft until the cotton is soaked sheer with spit and Fu Meng-po is so hard, so hot and heavy and huge because of it. He can feel Fu Meng-po’s thighs quaking under his arm; feel the strain in his hips as he tries to leash in the little rutting hitches that keep pushing his cock up harder and harder into Kuan-hung’s mouth, against his tongue.
It has to be the worst blowjob he’s ever given — he hasn’t even gotten Fu Meng-po’s cock out properly yet — but Fu Meng-po sounds so good, harsh ragged breath and torn-out broken sound above him, and Kuan-hung can feel his own cock leaking where it’s pinned up between his legs. His sweats are going to stain— Fu Meng-po is going to be able to see, the moment he shifts up in any way, just how much he’s liking this, only this, and that thought makes Kuan-hung shudder with another whine that cuts off short when Fu Meng-po’s fingers twist in and tug at his hair.
Kuan-hung tries to get himself up just enough that he can suck on the tip and lave at the precome beading up on the slit; that he can take in the scratch of the damp fabric on his tongue; the heaviness and heat; the taste of salt. He means to— he means to, then, next, but, Fu Meng-po makes a keening, rent-open sound, and he’s coming. His hand fists viciously in Kuan-hung’s hair, the palm of the other turning down from his cheek and reaching away, knuckles kneading up into him as he finds one of Kuan-hung’s hands in his lap to squeeze it in a sweaty, shaky grip.
It’s a shock, and it’s the hottest thing Kuan-hung has ever seen or heard or felt or anything in his life. He’s feverish with pleasure and punch-drunk on the power of it, utterly, as he swallows Fu Meng-po’s come, sucking and licking the clinging taste of it clean from the cotton. Fu Meng-po gasps wretchedly, wrecked, and Kuan-hung’s eyes snap open in a swimming daze as Fu Meng-po takes his face in both hands and tips his head back, arching him away from his softening cock.
“Shit,” Fu Meng-po breathes. Kuan-hung, stunned, can only groan out in a way he means to mean the same sentiment. Maybe it gets across; maybe it doesn’t. Kuan-hung breathes out and out and tries to take something back into his chest in the trade-off, blinking until his gaze focuses enough that he can see, through the fall of his sweat-tacky hair that Fu Meng-po is combing back from his forehead, how flushed red Fu Meng-po’s cheeks are, how blown dark his eyes.
“Shit,” Fu Meng-po repeats, louder, and Kuan-hung is struck brittle cold with the sudden thought that he just might die if he doesn’t get to come. His cock is so hard it’s aching, leaking filthy wet, sticking his briefs to his thighs, and he nearly bites through his tongue to stop the beg of a sob as Fu Meng-po grapples him under the arms and starts hauling him up.
“Hey, hey,” Fu Meng-po croons at him, hoarse, his breath slamming out of him when Kuan-hung catches himself against his chest, heavy-handed. His legs are still half strewn towards the passenger’s seat, one knee forcing itself between Fu Meng-po’s thighs to counterbalance the swagger of his weight. “Wow— look at you. Easy, take a moment. Shit.”
Kuan-hung tries to sag into his kneel, gritting his teeth around a yelp when pain lances up the inside of his thigh, bent wide, and then Fu Meng-po is taking all of his weight back in on himself again, like it’s nothing at all to bear. He lifts him; manhandles him back into the passenger’s seat with some awkward lifting and twisting, and then clumsily follows him over and through. Kuan-hung’s back has barely hit the upholstery when Fu Meng-po clips his knee on the armrest, and he jerks to attention, sobered immediately by the sharp way Fu Meng-po has to catch himself between the roof and the headrest to stop himself from slamming fully into him. There’s something about it, that— it taps into and breaks open the wellspring of whatever it is bubbling up in Kuan-hung’s chest.
He laughs, bumping his head when his body tries to throw him back into the cracking peal of it only to find nowhere to go, not between the seat and Fu Meng-po’s now unprecarious hover.
“What are you doing?” Kuan-hung manages to get out, giggly, throwing an arm over his eyes to take the edge off the glittering glass shard of sunlight glinting through the window. The skin of his forearm smudges at his eyelashes; comes away specked with tears. He’s hard, and hysterical, and a mess, and he’s going to make it worse the moment Fu Meng-po gets a hand on him, if Fu Meng-po even still wants to get a hand on him, after being treated to a show like this.
He must still want to, though, because, “Trying not to crush you,” he hears Fu Meng-po tell him. There’s a pat of his hand against Kuan-hung’s thigh, pushy, then, “Put your legs together, c’mon.”
Kuan-hung bites back at least three things he can say to that, clears his throat as the filler instead, then tucks his thighs together tightly, trying to make himself even smaller as Fu Meng-po straddles his lap, knelt up, bracketing him in by his knees. The next laugh that hiccups out wrenches partway into something too close to a sob, and he feels his chest shudder painfully around the hole it leaves there.
“What do you want?” Fu Meng-po whispers, close; there’s a hand on his neck to follow it, and Fu Meng-po strokes behind his ear, thumbs at his jaw. Kuan-hung breathes in, clenches his fist, and presses his tensed bicep down harder against his eyes.
“You?” he tries, hating it in its entirety.
“You have me.” Kuan-hung can hear his smile so well that he can see it blind. It’s picture-perfect in his head.
Kuan-hung lowers his arm from his face, slow, and warily opens his eyes. The tears he’s smeared around are clumping his eyelashes, now. He can feel the burn of more at the edges, waiting to fall. His cheeks are burning hot from the embarrassment of his own need; the hungry contortion he feels pulling at his face and the pulse of his cock where it’s trapped flush to his thigh. He needs Fu Meng-po to touch him. He needs Fu Meng-po to touch him in ways he can’t bring himself to the brink of asking for yet. “Please,” he snaps, “please, just—”
Fu Meng-po cradles his face between his hands and kisses the rest of the plead from his mouth before he can finish lowering himself to it. It’s sloppy, open-mouthed rough; Kuan-hung gasps into it, feeling the damp mess of spit and everything else on his chin smear between them as Fu Meng-po licks in past his teeth.
He whines out, like a warning, that he’s a mess— that he has to taste like— but Fu Meng-po just holds him in place, curling his tongue over Kuan-hung’s with a knowing deliberateness to it, a want that rends him breathless. Kuan-hung scrabbles, flails, finds Fu Meng-po’s broad shoulders and puts the claw of his fingers to them in a desperate hold. He has to hold on, or he’s going to fall, no matter the grip Fu Meng-po has on him.
Fu Meng-po twists his face away, breaking the kiss, then leans back. Not far— not too far, just enough that he can get their eyes to meet. “Good?” he asks. “You’re good?”
“I’m.” Kuan-hung grimaces. He’s good, he just— “I’m, I just. I need—”
“I know,” Fu Meng-po assures him. “I know.” He ducks back in, kisses the corner of Kuan-hung’s mouth; nips at it. Kuan-hung gasps, kicking out against the floor, then groans when Fu Meng-po just kisses the corner of his mouth again, the barest hint of a touch. It’s a tease, and it’s torture, and it’s not enough.
“Then touch me!” he demands in a blustering rush, an anxious impatience starting to muddy the heady thrum of his arousal. “I’m going to die.” Kuan-hung laughs around it, the ridiculousness of it, though the threat feels very real right now in his frantic mind. “Are you— trying to right a wrong? Because I made you come in your pants?”
Fu Meng-po’s surprised laugh huffs out against his cheek. He kisses over it, once, twice, again, then, “It’s returning the favour.”
Oh, god. “Don’t!” Kuan-hung wriggles between his legs, kicking out again uselessly. If Fu Meng-po makes him come in his pants as a turnabout he will never recover. He’ll have to get out of the car and walk — bowlegged — back to Kaohsiung. Maybe even block Fu Meng-po’s number. “Don’t, you keep it. I don’t want it back.”
“All right,” Fu Meng-po says, “hold on,” and then he’s fumbling between them for the buttons on his shirt, shoulders drawing up under Kuan-hung’s hands. There’s not a lot of room — there’s no room at all, really, for him to move, so Fu Meng-po stays bowed over him, pinning him between the drape of his body and the nice upholstery. Kuan-hung feels his muscles flex and jerk up into the cups of his palms as he moves; presses his lips to Fu Meng-po’s temple and mouths his whine into the sweat-stuck strands there as Fu Meng-po strips his shirt off and drops it away— somewhere, wherever, out of his sight and well past his care.
Kuan-hung paws at now-bared skin, then tangles his fingers up in the straps of Fu Meng-po’s singlet, squirming between Fu Meng-po’s knees. “I’m gonna scratch up your back,” he warns breathlessly.
“S’all right,” Fu Meng-po tells him, all melted warm and easy-like. “You can do that.”
“I’m going to anyway,” Kuan-hung tests him tartly. All well and good to have permission, but he wouldn’t— Fu Meng-po would have to do something about his hands if he didn’t want to be scratched up. It isn’t as if Kuan-hung thought to do his nails before this. This wouldn’t have been within a mile of his itinerary if he’d even thought to have one. Fu Meng-po doing something about it, though— “Oh.” He fists his hands even tighter, shivering.
Fu Meng-po turns his head, nosing their faces back together. He kisses Kuan-hung with the same infuriating interim softness; sucks lightly on his bottom lip before shifting away. His hands find Kuan-hung’s sides, fingers tracing his runged ribs through his shirt.
“Can I kiss you?” Fu Meng-po noses at him, breathes it out into his cheek.
“You’ve already kissed me.” That is definitely something they’ve done. Kuan-hung’s lips are still tingling from it, even. They might never stop.
“I mean,” Fu Meng-po starts, but then he doesn’t finish it at all; decides to show, instead. His hands drag up Kuan-hung’s chest, his fingers hook in his collar, and then he’s tugging it down and Kuan-hung bucks up at the hot slap of Fu Meng-po’s breath over his collarbone.
“Yes,” Kuan-hung rushes out, “yes, you can, you should— oh!”
Fu Meng-po sets his teeth to Kuan-hung, his tongue, and sucks. The sound Kuan-hung makes— he hears it, hears himself, and he burns with it, the frail shock and the feral hunger. It’s sweet and sloppy and filthy and stings, and then Fu Meng-po is everywhere, hands skimming his slender sides, nose pushing his shirt further down so he can get his mouth on more and more of his skin.
“Oh god,” he’s saying, “oh god,” because he can’t shut up and he wants, he wants, he wants. And Fu Meng-po is giving, is dipping his thick fingers in underneath Kuan-hung’s sweats and his briefs, is freeing his cock just enough that it can slap wetly against his belly.
Fu Meng-po takes his mouth away with a wet smack and Kuan-hung keens, tries to chase him blind, clawing at his shoulders, urging him back. Fu Meng-po’s breath shakes out of him as his stare lowers down between the jumble of them, narrowing onto his cock and Kuan-hung tries to close his already closed legs in reflex, shying. He has nothing to be shy about. Fu Meng-po would never think anything about him that would make him shy. But Kuan-hung is so hard, and so bare while barely naked, and he wants to come, and Fu Meng-po’s entirety is so heavy where it’s all bearing down on top of him.
“You’re…” Fu Meng-po stops, licks his lip, then, “No, no,” he soothes, sudden, dipping back in to push their mouths together. He parts Kuan-hung’s lips, licks back into his mouth, curls his tongue up behind his teeth. It’s slow, sweet. Torturously gentle. Kuan-hung whines, pushing at him, and Fu Meng-po takes it, unwavering. Kuan-hung’s mouth feels swollen plush; still slicked with his own spit. He must still taste like Fu Meng-po’s come.
Kuan-hung is dizzy, dizzier, when they part for breath, and then Fu Meng-po’s hand is closing down on his hip, holding him still, leaving nothing left in his head but the whir of whining static.
“You’re so wet,” Fu Meng-po breathes out, ragged, like he’s rebounding from a blow. He drags his thumb up the underside of Kuan-hung’s shaft and strokes at where his foreskin is drawn back, smearing his precome, rubbing it in. “You get so wet.”
Kuan-hung feels his mouth fall slack, but his tongue curls around nothing, just the faux-shape of a sound. “Oh,” he finally manages, and it’s all squeak-high and shamed. He’s. He’s never thought about it before. He doesn’t think anyone has ever made that comment to him before. “Is that. Do you like that?”
“Yeah.” Fu Meng-po rolls his thumb over the slit, then presses down on it and Kuan-hung’s hip in tandem. Kuan-hung hisses, animal, and bucks, throwing his head back into the writhe. He feels himself drip.
“I’m going to—” He tries to push at Fu Meng-po’s shoulders, digging the heels of his palms in, feet skidding along the floor. “Everywhere, I, if you keep going, I’ll come—” Which, he wants to do, he very much wants to do, but he doesn’t want it to be all over himself and Fu Meng-po.
“I’ll handle it,” Fu Meng-po reassures him. Kuan-hung wants to ask how — feels more than a little punch-drunk from the possibilities his mind throws itself open to — but then Fu Meng-po’s nuzzling into the crook of his throat, mouthing over the rattle-race of his pulse, and Kuan-hung turns his face into him and whimpers into his hair as he listens to snatches of Fu Meng-po fumbling around somewhere beside them. His breath is very hot, even on his scalding skin. His stubble is scratching at him, leaving blotchy friction burns that are going to cling maddeningly to the pale plains of his neck and rub even rawer against his shirt and seatbelt.
Fu Meng-po turns his face away, and Kuan-hung moans, craning after him, nose burrowing against his ear. Beneath his nails feels— grimy. He’s taken skin off Fu Meng-po’s back. He tries to find the welts with the pads of his fingertips, thrilling in a dirty, deep sort of way at the raised, hot lines as he charts them, and how Fu Meng-po’s muscles ripple beneath as he shifts and stretches.
He’s almost lost in it, the indolent, repetitive lull, but Fu Meng-po’s hand on his cock again surfaces him with a start. It feels— Kuan-hung looks down between them and groans. “You— god. You have condoms on you? In here?”
It’s the wrong thing to say, but only because Fu Meng-po stops, as if anything that is coming out of Kuan-hung’s mouth right now requires consideration now or accountability later. Kuan-hung keens miserably, trying to push up into the circle of Fu Meng-po’s fingers where they’ve paused around the tip of his dick.
“Yes?”
“I just.” Kuan-hung is an idiot. This is it. Fu Meng-po is going to take his hand back off Kuan-hung’s dick and drive him back to Kaohsiung and Kuan-hung is never going to get laid ever again. He is so dumb. “I was surprised?” he tries to justify. “I mean, I didn’t, I don’t think I’ve had them on me in— this is saying, a lot, that I didn’t want to say, actually.” Nevermind. It’s not going to matter that Fu Meng-po is going to let go of his dick, now, because Kuan-hung is going to die. He feels himself twitch in Fu Meng-po’s loose grip, and flushes cold with mortification, because of course he’s somehow still painfully hard and desperate to come.
“Okay,” Fu Meng-po says. He’s smiling, a bastard-bright smile that he presses into Kuan-hung’s mouth when he leans between them for a kiss.
“Please move,” Kuan-hung begs against his lips, “please move your hand, put it on, please, or I really will—” Fu Meng-po hushes him, regrounds his palm on Kuan-hung’s hip, then moves, rolling the condom down the rest of his shaft before he wraps his fingers around the base, squeezes down, and,
“Oh,” Kuan-hung moans, raw, trying to push up past the pin of Fu Meng-po’s hand on his hip so he can fuck into his fist. Fu Meng-po doesn’t let him move, though, keeping him down nice and stilled. “Oh! You’re big. You’re everywhere.”
“You gonna come?” Fu Meng-po asks, squeezing down on him tighter. Kuan-hung chokes on his tongue, writhing; has to close his eyes so he can’t watch anything, anymore, his chin tucked to his collarbone, as Fu Meng-po finally starts jerking him off all rough and rushed and sweat-slick grip perfect. His jaw nudges against one of the bruises Fu Meng-po’s left when he swallows, and Kuan-hung yelps, bitten-off muffled behind his teeth sinking into his smarting, swollen bottom lip.
“Close,” Kuan-hung babbles, clambering to hold onto Fu Meng-po’s back, his hair, anything and everything he can put his hands to. He can’t stay still, he has to keep— moving, touching, he feels like if he stops then the rest of this is going to stop short with him and he can’t— he can’t— “Close, close, I’m close—”
Fu Meng-po kisses the rest of it out of his mouth, sucks it right off his tongue, and Kuan-hung shakes out of the bounds of his skin and wails and finally comes so hard he whites out. He comes back to himself in parts, pulled together; to Fu Meng-po’s hand still rubbing his cock, working him through the last pulses of his orgasm; to Fu Meng-po’s mouth on his cheekbone murmuring his praises.
Kuan-hung makes a despairing sound, and Fu Meng-po turns back to him, seeks out his mouth. The kissing definitely takes the edge off the crash of his comedown. It makes him no less sticky, though.
“I’m— I’m really, gross,” Kuan-hung manages, breathless, when he can find an opening in the steady, rhythmic way Fu Meng-po has fit their lips together, is kissing him down.
“All right.” Fu Meng-po leans back a breath of an inch, then leans back in, takes another whisper of a kiss. It’s barely anything. It burns Kuan-hung up like a blaze. “All right.”
He rears back up onto his knees, and Kuan-hung’s jittery giggle as he overshoots and has to duck his head and catch himself on the dash fractures off into a grunt as the rest of him catches up to the sight. And it’s definitely a sight: Fu Meng-po, muscles straining, his legs spread out, his clothes all rumpled up and fuck-mussed. Kuan-hung can see, now, the angry red lines that he’s already felt out, where his nails have staked their claim on Fu Meng-po’s skin. Can see the bulge of his cock, too, framed obscenely by the vee of his zipper.
“What are you doing?” he croaks out, because he needs to ask, absolutely needs to work his mouth around something that’s not wrapped up in leaning over and pressing his face back into Fu Meng-po’s lap. Kuan-hung can see that Fu Meng-po’s worked back up a bit just from jerking him off; it wouldn’t take much more to get him hard again with his mouth. It’s really all too much. They’re never going to make it out of Gukeng if he lets himself have more of his way about it.
“Cleaning up,” Fu Meng-po says. He starts to turn; stops when Kuan-hung protests it in the back of his throat, borderline nonsensical, his thigh tapping out at Fu Meng-po’s knee. “I’m coming back. Don’t worry.”
“Who’s worried? You’re not even going anywhere, anyway,” Kuan-hung says, but it’s a hopeless endeavour, trying to spare the last of his face. He tosses his arm back over his eyes again, to hide himself as much as to hide Fu Meng-po from him as he listens to him open the glovebox. He’s starting to cool off, and everything is drying tacky to his skin. It’s all an uncomfortable paradigm-realignment to the reality of his and this situation. It means Fu Meng-po’s hands on him again come as an all-new shock, anticipated but unexpected, and he jars up between Fu Meng-po’s thighs.
“Easy,” Fu Meng-po coaxes, palm kneading his hip. He presses a wipe into Kuan-hung’s hand, starts lifting his shirt with the other to pat down his belly, up his chest. Kuan-hung lifts his other hand, eyes still stubbornly shut, and haphazardly manages to clean his fingers off just before he derails off-track at the swipe of wet cloth over his collarbones.
“Ah—! Did you maul me?!” Kuan-hung gasps. He flinches out, all elbows, grunting when he smacks into the side of the car. His skin feels reignited from Fu Meng-po’s touch, raw red sore.
“Might’ve.” From the casual way he says it, his conscience is clearly free of contrition. Kuan-hung opens his mouth around a complaint, a chastisement, something— he has to clamp his jaw back shut tight around the whimper it turns into when Fu Meng-po’s hand closes over his soft cock.
“Oh—”
“Got you,” Fu Meng-po gentles.
“I’m sensitive,” Kuan-hung yelps, bristling, cheeks a slapped blush-pink.
“I know.” Fu Meng-po doesn’t touch him any more than he needs to, cleaning him up and tucking him back into his briefs. “I thought you would be.” And Kuan-hung— he’s all cotton from the neck up, so, it’s not like he gets to think about that, that admittance, as Fu Meng-po’s hand slips just a little further into his sweats to dab at Kuan-hung’s inner thighs.
“Then be gentle!” Kuan-hung berates. “Gentler.” Fu Meng-po pulls his hand out, tugs Kuan-hung’s waistband back up, and, “Good boy,” Kuan-hung blurts, mouth a mile away from his better judgement.
Fu Meng-po’s recovery is practically flawless, full marks, but Kuan-hung is paying attention, so he catches him out. And, well. That sure is— something to think about. He’s definitely going to think about it. Maybe more than think about it, later.
“Here." Fu Meng-po picks the wipe out of Kuan-hung's fingers, and, empty-handed, Kuan-hung lets his palm drift down to pet over his belly, righting his crumpled shirt back into place. He shifts a bit, opens the door, and Kuan-hung makes a bereaved sound entirely by accident as Fu Meng-po starts to get out, stopping him short halfway.
"You— don't go out like that!" Kuan-hung lashes out, latching his fingers in Fu Meng-po’s belt loops. He hasn't even zipped himself up. That’s not something that needs to be broadcast to the greater gathered public. "Look at you!" he exclaims, and Fu Meng-po blinks down, does, then snorts out a laugh. "Still can't wear clothes. Do you want to be seen like this? Come here."
Fu Meng-po lets him pull up his zipper, rebutton his jeans, and even generously fields some fussing with the hem of his singlet. Kuan-hung's hands feel somewhat less flighty when he finally deems Fu Meng-po presentable enough for release.
“I’ll be back.” Fu Meng-po goes low, snatches up his shirt from the floor, and then starts shrugging his shoulders into it as he rights himself. “Just going to toss this.” He gestures, once he’s a semblance more dressed, with his half-fisted hand for emphasis. Upturning it, as if to show Kuan-hung the evidence of what his fingers are pinning down in the cup of his palm. Kuan-hung doesn’t need to see the detritus of what just happened; he’s still coming down from it first-hand.
Kuan-hung bites down on his bottom lip, committed to not laughing out his giddy glee just once, just this once, as he waves Fu Meng-po off. He is— sweaty, and probably smells, and definitely looks a fucked-out mess, and feels dreamily delirious with all of it. He just. They just. At a rest station. Kuan-hung hasn’t done anything along the lines of that since, well. It’s been a long, long while. He tends to be far more discreet, now.
Fuck. Fu Meng-po just came in his pants on Kuan-hung’s face. This is now an experience he has lived of which the words to explain it only make sense to him individually. In a sequential sentence they’re utterly incomprehensible.
He tries not to touch at his own chest, to push down on the bruises there as if the proof of the marks Fu Meng-po's teeth and tongue have left will gain further clarity by aching to a sting. He puts his hands to everything and anything else, instead. He gets his phone out of the cupholder and puts it in his pocket. He gets his rice snacks up off the floor and seats them in his lap. He picks up the water bottle, uncaps it, takes a drink, then wipes his mouth dry on the back of his wrist.
Fu Meng-po is gone for an age that likely only clocks up to a few minutes. Kuan-hung holds the water bottle out to him once he's climbed back into the driver's seat. It's only when Fu Meng-po's taking a drink, though, that he feels sufficiently brave enough to actually pipe up with anything.
"Thanks. For picking me up," he clarifies, after a beat. Though the sex was gratitude-worthy, too, he doesn’t want Fu Meng-po to misconstrue his meaning, whatever that meaning might be.
He watches Fu Meng-po’s mouth purse in thought for the beat it takes for him to recap the bottle and set it down in the cupholder. Then, with a tentative mirth, he says, “Was that my thanks, then?”
Well, so much for that meaning, then. And maybe what’s left of his dignity. Kuan-hung feels something ease up off his chest, still, though, anyway. Like a hand, almost, unclenching, leaving only the pleasant little panging pains of the marks Fu Meng-po sloppily sucked into his skin. The new lightness yanks a barking laugh out of him, too. It feels good. It feels—
"If you're that easy to thank," Kuan-hung says, "then, sure. Pass me my sunglasses?"
Fu Meng-po claps his hand down on his thigh as he laughs back, thumb teasing at the crook of his knee before he pulls away. He plucks Kuan-hung’s sunglasses off the dash, hands them over, then leans up for his own. It's not weird. Kuan-hung's not made it weird. Or, if nothing else, Fu Meng-po's not going to let it be made weird.
It's good. They're all right. It’s more of a relief than Kuan-hung expected it to be, now that he’s got it. He slips his sunglasses back on, belts up, and sags into his seat. Legs kicked out in front of him; ankles crossed; toes pointed up.