The Underground Club and the "Real" Club
Hong Ji-hyeon stepped into the bathroom and washed his mouth, his face, and his hands. One pass with the soap wasn't nearly enough to get Marcus's scent off him.
A little later he crept back out—she, no, he—and with the heat gone out of him, shame had rushed in to fill the space. At the bathroom door he leaned just far enough to peek at Marcus.
"Ah, ahaha~"
With no idea what he was supposed to say, Ji-hyeon laughed, thin and awkward. Marcus was waiting for him in a chair, bare from the waist up.
He still hadn't dressed, so Ji-hyeon was naked. Mortified by the state of himself, he covered his half-hard cock with one hand and hunched in on his body.
"Come here."
Marcus called him in that cavernous voice, and Ji-hyeon was drawn to his side before he could think about refusing. As he came close, Marcus gathered him carefully in those huge hands and settled him onto his lap, then wrapped an arm around that narrow waist so the small body perched on his knee wouldn't slip.
"You... okay?"
"Huh?"
Ji-hyeon hadn't caught the question. He turned his head to look at Marcus's face.
"Umm... did it not hurt?"
"Oh! It didn't hurt at all!"
"I really wanted to get closer to you, but... I'm not that good at this. I'm sorry if I forced you too much."
So this is the usual Marcus. Soft, kind Marcus. Then that side of him earlier really was for me. For me. Marcus-niiiiim♡♡♡
Marcus's consideration melted Ji-hyeon's already gooey heart all over again, as if that were the most natural thing in the world.
"I—I liked it... If anything, right now feels like a dream...?"
What if this actually is a dream? At this rate I'm definitely waking up from a wet dream.
"Ah, anyway... I liked it..."
Ji-hyeon said it shyly, stealing glances at Marcus's face.
"I appreciate it."
Marcus smiled as he said it, and at that clean, bright smile Ji-hyeon's eyes went wide.
Holy shit, he is stupidly handsome...!
Already, the way Ji-hyeon looked—and the way he thought—had drifted a long way from how a man was supposed to.
The two of them got dressed again and left the room. While they had been burning and then slowly cooling in that chair, it had already turned ten.
Ji-hyeon followed Marcus into the elevator. No one else was in it, and even the two of them weren't talking, so the car stayed quiet.
Where we're going now is the club... right? He said Marcus's second brother runs it. And today's Friday, so it ought to be wide open, shouldn't it? Clubs and I do not get along. Not even a little.
Back in his second year—last year—Ji-hyeon had been to a club exactly once, and only because Park Yu-seong, just about his only friend, had talked him into it. He'd gone out of curiosity. It had not gone well.
The crush of bodies, the choking cigarette smell, music so loud it wore him out just to stand still—Ji-hyeon burned through what little energy he had in no time. And being the loner he was, he had never managed to settle into the whole culture of dancing, drinking, and cutting loose.
I did say I'd at least look at whatever this part-time job is... but I have no idea what I'm even supposed to be able to do!
While he fretted, the elevator had already arrived at basement level five.
Basement one through three were parking. Four could only be reached by the staff elevator. And five was where the long-awaited club sat. The drop from four to five ran longer than the other stretches, though—in practice you had to sink another floor's worth of depth, more like six.
Huh?
Even as the doors opened, he couldn't feel that signature throb you got near a club. All that reached him was a faint thread of hip-hop.
Stepping out, he found a door on the left marked Staff Only and a corridor running off to the right. Ji-hyeon stuck close to Marcus's side and followed it, and the music grew louder as they went.
Above the entrance a flashy light installation spelled ONYX EDEN. There was no door. A corridor curved inward instead, swallowing the sound that leaked from inside, and along that bend a wall of displays sat dark, powered down.
Once they cleared the inner corridor, the club itself opened in front of Ji-hyeon's eyes. The hallway ended at a corner of the room, with a bar immediately ahead. Opposite the bar was the DJ stage, and between the two a hall dotted here and there with standing tables. Along the remaining walls, VIP balcony seats waited in a row, each one a short flight of stairs up. The ceiling ran about twice the height of the first-floor lobby, and by eye alone the place had to be something like five thousand square feet—a seriously wide layout.
Right now, though, that space felt very empty. Only a few lights were on, and music played from a single speaker.
Before Ji-hyeon could even get his bearings, a big voice came flying at the two of them.
"Ayyy! What's good, my dawg?"
A husky voice you could almost hear the smoke in, riding a groovy cadence. The source was a mountain of a man coming toward Marcus and Ji-hyeon.
Six feet even—about four inches shorter than Marcus—but he didn't give an inch on bulk. If anything, the mass was his win. It wasn't just fat. The same thick frame as Marcus, muscle laid over it not quite as hard as his brother's but well set, and then flesh on top of that.
He was Marcus's older brother by six years, the second brother: Derrick Duval.
"My nigga in the building! You solid, right? No beef?"
Derrick traded a warm handshake with Marcus. Overwhelmed by that gravelly voice and that bulk, Ji-hyeon timidly hid behind Marcus's back. Derrick spotted him anyway.
"H-hello~"
"Oh, so you're the guy! Wait, I mean, her... or—ah, man, forget it. Name's Derrick. Derrick, Big D, Manager D—just whatever's easy for ya."
He had been picking his words while looking back and forth between Marcus and Ji-hyeon, and he finished the greeting with a wave at empty air. Something about that cheerful character—Ji-hyeon felt like he'd seen the type a few times in games—loosened his guard a little, and a smile tugged at his mouth.
"Ah, I'm Hong Ji-hyeon...! Call me Ji-hyeon."
"Aight, aight, Ji-hyeon. Nice to meet ya!"
Derrick stuck his hand out, and Ji-hyeon took it. The hand was as big as Marcus's, but maybe because of the flesh it felt less hard. Still holding on, Derrick kept going, face full of mischief.
"Nice to meetcha~! Welcome!"
"Oh—ohh...!"
The Korean came out better than Ji-hyeon had expected, and he reacted before he could stop himself. At that, Derrick let go of his hand and laughed, big and open.
"Ahahahaha! See? I got better Korean than Marcus~"
He was needling Marcus on purpose. Faced with the cheerful older brother Derrick always was, Marcus smiled without strain.
"Um, so..."
The air had loosened enough that Ji-hyeon decided to ask what he was wondering.
"Is the club not open today?"
Derrick caught it and answered at once.
"Oh! We still settin' up, man. Next week is the big move, ya know what I'm sayin'?"
Ahh. So that's why it looks like this.
Ji-hyeon nodded at the explanation, then took in the club around them.
"So... that worked out, right? We cool to talk about it now?"
"If you're fine with it."
"Hey, I'm all good, as long as ya can handle it, bro."
In the middle of all that, the two brothers had been talking about something else. They looked at each other, nodded, and Derrick called Ji-hyeon over.
"So, Ji-hyeon! You looking for yo job, right? A part-time gig~"
"Ah, yes! I—for now... I just wanted to see what kind of work it is. Like a look around..."
"Ahh, don't worry, man~ You will like it! I bet!"
Having caught Ji-hyeon's meaning, Derrick rolled his shoulders and carried the cheerful mood right along.
"Worried? No~ no~"
Looking out for him—really, treating the pair the playful way he treated everybody—Derrick led them on. He went ahead through the door right beside the bar, the one marked Staff Only.
Beyond it a long corridor ran both ways. Right took you behind the DJ stage; left took you to the staff room behind the bar, and also out to the door that had stood in front of the elevator. A staff passage. But the three of them weren't heading either way. Straight ahead was the private-room section—private in the literal sense, a zone of about four rooms no one else could see into. Derrick led them to the innermost one.
The space grew more secretive with every step, and Ji-hyeon tensed. He was a little scared, even. Marcus noticed and stroked his back, gentle.
"Don't... worry."
"Ah... hehe... thank you."
"Alright!"
Standing at the private-room door, Derrick called out loud.
"So... Ji-hyeon. What you're gonna see right now? Strictly top secret. Marcus trusts ya, that's the only reason you're seein' this. So be careful, man. For Marcus, alright?"
"It's a secret! Promise?"
"Ah, yes! I absolutely won't tell anyone, anywhere!"
Nerves and honesty sat together in Ji-hyeon's answer. Derrick smacked his palms together once at that, then opened the private-room door.
Inside waited a high-end sofa, a pretty table done in gold and black, a speaker set into the ceiling—but there was no time to look at any of it, because Derrick pushed the inner wall. The wall slid open with a soft hiss.
Huh...? What... is this...?
Beyond it, stairs went down. Step by step, Ji-hyeon descended with an unreal, dreamlike pounding in his chest. And the moment the stairs ended, his eyes went wide at a sight he couldn't believe.
There was another club down there. And on the huge neon sign, easy to read from the entrance, it said: