After the Drinking Party
It was the spring orientation, the gathering that announced a new school year and a new semester.
The afterparty that followed caught fire, as it was always going to. Freshmen, barely adults and giddy with it; the student council there to welcome them; the enrolled students there simply to drink — the first round blew past before anyone quite noticed. As the night began to wind down, a poll for a second round went up in the group chat, and Hong Ji-hyeon and Park Yu-seong voted yes like it was the only sensible choice.
A little later the students bunched together outside the bar. Anyone skipping the second round said their goodbyes and peeled off, and a few from the student council headed out first toward the next place.
"You're already wasted. Completely gone."
Yu-seong said it while watching Ji-hyeon sway, and Ji-hyeon, pleasantly drunk, laughed and shot him a thumbs-up.
"Got sooo drunk~"
He almost never drank, so he was luxuriating in a buzz he hadn't felt in ages. That was when Marcus came over. The approach of that massive frame made Yu-seong flinch, but Ji-hyeon lit up the moment he saw Marcus step in behind him.
"Marcuuus~"
He gave a little bounce where he stood, nothing but happy to see him.
"You good?"
"Yes, yes~"
Marcus's face didn't so much as twitch, but he was glad to see him too.
"Afterparty... we go?"
"Yeah, of course~ You coming too, Marcus?"
"I want to, but..."
Ji-hyeon caught the problem at once. Marcus didn't have CocoaTalk, which meant he hadn't been able to vote in the group chat at all.
"Ah—! One second! Hey, Yu-seong, could you... tell the student council Marcus wasn't in the group chat, so he couldn't vote?"
"Huh? Me?"
"It's awkward if I bring it up..."
Yu-seong flicked a glance at Marcus, said sure, and headed off toward the student council.
"Thank youuu."
"You're welcome~"
The news that Marcus was coming to the second round too had Ji-hyeon buzzing. Marcus looked quietly down at him as he fluttered on the alcohol, but Ji-hyeon himself was too spaced out to notice.
Yu-seong came back before long to report that the student council had given the okay, and Ji-hyeon brightened all over again.
"Thank you."
Marcus offered his thanks and held a hand out to Yu-seong.
Veins and muscle stood up under black skin. Even at a glance, it was a hand that wouldn't lose to anyone's. Yu-seong hesitated a beat, then took it and smiled. Next to Marcus's, his perfectly ordinary hand looked terribly small.
Watching from the side, Ji-hyeon stuck his own hand out. Marcus took in the woozy, swaying mess of him and accepted the handshake anyway.
"Thank you for helpinggg."
"Don't mention it~"
On the surface it looked like nothing but drunk horsing around. Even three sheets to the wind, though, Hong Ji-hyeon had a perfectly clear objective.
AAAAAH! I'm holding his hand!!
His hand, a little smaller than most, vanished completely inside Marcus's. Where Ji-hyeon's was soft, Marcus's was firm — not rough, though, as if the skin had been looked after.
This is insane. His hand is fucking enormous. And hot! Is his body temperature just naturally higher?! He barely even squeezed, and I can still feel how heavy that strength is. If this hand ever really closed on me, I don't think I could move!
In the brief span of that handshake, Ji-hyeon drank in every sensation coming off Marcus's palm and savored it down to the last.
Thank you, God! Thank you for granting me the chance to hold the hand of a superior Black muscle man!
He fought to keep the detonating dopamine and the rush off his face. The excitement, he could have sworn, had already burned the drunkenness clean out of him.
The second bar, when they got there, had no assigned seats and no set sections, and Ji-hyeon stalled, fretting over where he was supposed to sit. He wanted to follow Marcus, but Marcus seemed to be thinking the same thing, waiting without a word.
"Let's sit over there!"
Luckily Yu-seong was right there, and the three of them ended up together. Ji-hyeon took the seat across from him, and Marcus settled in beside Ji-hyeon as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Insane! This is insane!
Behind the face he was carefully keeping blank, his wrecked brain was still churning out dopamine on its own.
"Mind if I sit here?"
The one approaching the table was Choi Mi-na, president of the student council.
"Minaaa~"
"Yu-seooong~"
Yu-seong and Mi-na bumped fists like old friends, and she dropped into the open seat beside him.
"Aren't you supposed to be looking after the freshmen?"
"The others can handle it~ I'm free now."
She said it while twisting the cap off the soju in front of her with a bright little crack. Ji-hyeon hurried to set out glasses and paper cups, and Yu-seong dealt spoons around the table. The crisp, practiced rhythm of it made even Marcus's blank expression flicker, as if he'd been caught off guard.
Before long, students filled the seats across from Marcus and Mi-na as well.
"Marcus, can you drink?"
Mi-na asked it while pouring soju into Yu-seong's glass and Ji-hyeon's.
"Hey, he drinks crazy well!"
The girl who'd ended up beside Mi-na threw her whole body into the declaration.
"I'm telling you, he kept right up with the seniors' pace."
"Whoa~ And those guys are legendary drinkers."
Yu-seong sounded honestly impressed, thinking of the upperclassmen who put alcohol away like they had a personal vendetta against it. Ji-hyeon, saying nothing, was impressed too. Just not in quite the same way.
He can hold his liquor on top of everything else... A total man's man! Even his liver is an alpha male!
"What about you, Ji-hyeon? Can you drink?"
"Ah, I'm not really... not to that extent..."
"Hey, hey, this guy can't drink at all. Four glasses and he still can't pull himself together."
"I am not that bad, okay? I can drink more!"
Yu-seong's teasing jab hooked him cleanly. In the end the four of them drank at Mi-na and Yu-seong's pace.
The conversation ran mostly on people asking about Marcus, or talking about him. He didn't say much, but his Korean was good enough that it never stalled the table. His older brothers, already living in Korea, had rubbed off on him, and he'd studied for a year so he could come as an exchange student.
He said his brothers ran a business here. Nobody asked what kind, and Marcus looked faintly relieved at that.
"What are your hobbies?"
"I like games. And working out."
"Oh? What kind of games?"
"...Life of Dragon."
"What's that?"
"Ah."
Mi-na had no idea what the game was. Yu-seong did. The title out of Marcus's mouth put a look of playful dread on his face, and he turned it on Ji-hyeon.
"What? Why?"
"Just making sure you're not about to spend an hour not shutting up about how it's a masterpiece or whatever."
"When have I ever talked for a whole hour?!"
Yu-seong knew to his bones what a die-hard fan Ji-hyeon was, and he needled him for it. Marcus watched the two of them squabble like old friends, quiet and steady.
The second round tore past even more wildly than the first. Somewhere in the middle of it Ji-hyeon put away a bottle and a half of soju, and he was far drunker than he'd been at the end of round one.
"Hey, Ji-hyeon, you okay?"
"Ugh... I feel like shit..."
He answered with his head tipped back against the wall and his tongue gone loose.
"Yeah, there's no way we send him home alone."
"If you know where his place is, walk him back. We'll head to the third round ahead of you."
"Aah! Going there and back is a solid forty minutes, easy."
"That's doable~"
At Mi-na's word, Yu-seong gave in and stood to take Ji-hyeon home. That was when Marcus, seated right beside him, shot to his feet.
"My place is close. I'll go with him."
Yu-seong blinked, thrown, then smiled.
"Aww, no, no. Feels weird dumping that on you~ I'll take him—"
He bent to get an arm under Ji-hyeon and startled, coming face to face with Marcus's expressionless stare from above.
"It's fine. I'll do it."
"Ah, that's..."
Mi-na broke the awkward silence.
"Come on, Marcus and Ji-hyeon are close. Marcus, thank you sooo much! I'm counting on you!"
Marcus turned his head just enough to nod, then looked back down at Ji-hyeon and Yu-seong. In the end Yu-seong retreated, a little cowed.
Mi-na, Yu-seong, and a handful of others peeled off for a private third round, and most of the rest headed home.
Marcus held Ji-hyeon up and started toward his apartment. At six-foot-four beside five-foot-seven, their shoulders were never going to line up, so Marcus's hand came to rest gently around the upper curve of Ji-hyeon's waist — nearly his stomach — and supported him there.
"Ugh... what...?"
Ji-hyeon, who hadn't been able to walk at all, came partly back to himself after a few steps and staggered along.
"Huh?"
Only then did he register it: Marcus's thick arm wrapped around his waist, and his own shoulder and head resting against that warm, solid chest.
"H-huh?! Wh—?!"
Head spinning, he tried to plant his feet. Marcus loosened the hand at his waist a little at the movement, but he didn't lower his arm. Ji-hyeon clearly couldn't stay upright on his own.
"Nnngh."
He pitched forward, and Marcus caught his waist again.
"Ah... thank you..."
"You all right?"
"Ah, yeah. Yes."
Any other time, contact like this would have sent him into orbit. Drunk past the point of coping, his head simply would not turn over.
"It's okay. It's close. Our place."
"Ah... okay..."
Huh? Our place...?
"We're goin'... to Marcus's house, riiight~?"
"Yes. Is that uncomfortable?"
"Nooo~ As if~ Thank you for holding me up~ I'm not uncomfortable! I like Black guys, so...!"
What the fuck did I just say?