kris welcomes the sharp sting of the crisp night air on his heated skin as he makes his way across his penthouse suite balcony, leaning against the cold metal rails as he flicks open his sterling silver zippo and lights the cigarette hanging loosely on his lips.

tossing his lighter to the side and taking a slow, deep drag, kris savors the flavor of the acrid smoke coating the insides of his throat as the toxic chemicals make their way down to his lungs, letting the fumes vaporize a little inside his system before exhaling the remains.

he watches as the faint gray cloud drifts higher and higher into the darkness, blending and absorbing into the pitch black sky until it fades and completely disappears into the starry atmosphere.

the stars are particularly bright tonight. that’s a change.

a jarring honk from below breaks kris out of his reverie, forcing his gaze to plunge down into the lively, bustling streets of a city that never stops rolling. there’s just not enough time to waste with such trivial things as sleep when that’s all you’ll be doing once you’re six feet under. so the citizens of this town continue to hustle and bustle even after the end of business hours, subtly blending into the more shadier, underhanded kinds of dealings that can only be handled under the cover of night.

a dissonant combination of distant honking taxis, the faint drone of passing cars, and drunken shouts of indistinct words floats up into kris’ ears, and he turns away with mild displeasure wrinkling his nose.

he had never really been too fond of the metropolitan life, never truly understanding how others could enjoy the fast paced, hectic lifestyle that the city has to offer.

disorganized, chaotic.

and kris doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.

taking another drag to distract himself from his negative musings, kris settles back against the rails, glancing through the sliding glass doors where he sees junmyeon’s sleeping form splayed across kris’ luxurious king size bed, rich burgundy and gold trimmed comforter draped just below his waist.

wandering eyes travel up the curve of junmyeon’s lithe waist. and kris takes comfort in the steady rise and fall of the smaller man’s chest, shivery moonlight casting a pale, almost ethereal glow across the plane of junmyeon’s unblemished, milky skin.

kris knows he should feel at least some remorse for going back on his marriage vows, breaking every single promise that he’d made to victoria when he got down on one knee and asked for her hand to be his wife.

it’s not that he doesn’t love her, far from it.

but before junmyeon came into his life, kris had never truly understood the concept of feeling complete.

before junmyeon, kris had honestly thought he had it all.

but now, he doesn’t know what his life would be like without this ever smiling man, always so open to trust, so willing to please.

when kris looks into junmyeon’s eyes, the rest of the world ceases to exist.

and what he does feel is guilt. guilt for trapping junmyeon in a relationship that can never grow, a love that can never see the light of day, because their affair must always remain under the shrouds of late night, early morning darkness.

innocent, blameless junmyeon who would jump off the highest peak of the empire state building, should kris choose to ask.

because junmyeon loves kris, so hopelessly, thoroughly in love that every night they join together in this little love nest that kris had covertly, specifically purchased through circuitous means, every touch, every kiss, every slide of skin on skin, junmyeon goes against his own steadfast morals and beliefs to let himself drown in an illicit relationship with a married man, something junmyeon would never otherwise do in any lifetime if it weren’t for kris.

and to be fair, kris had never meant for this to happen, never meant to fall so hard for this average, middle class man with no particularly special family background.

an ordinary man with an ordinary career.

when kris had first laid eyes on junmyeon, it had been through the storefront of a quaint, homely little bookstore that the kim family had run for quite a few generations now. the smaller man had been tending to the front desk, carefully wiping down the wooden surface as kris passed by in a rush, complaining to his driver that he’d be late for an important meeting with one of his overseas clients.

the driver had mumbled a quiet apology, promising to try to get around the morning traffic as best as he could.

and with a huff of annoyance, kris had turned to glare out the window, deciding to lay blame and curse the first thing his eyes set on.

oh, but how could he dare profane that beautiful vision that now beheld his attention?

for a long while, kris’ brain was an upheaval of confusion and jumbled thoughts, wandering into his meeting after meeting in a daze, mind somewhere far, far away in a place where smooth fingers slid tomes of aged books back onto their shelves, a soft smile stretched across the nameless angel’s face.

and following the confusion came the anger, anger and frustration that a mere man had the kris wu stumbling and unable to regain his ground.

he’s not even gay for crying out loud.

and then came the obsession, the stifling compulsion to wonder the whose and what-ifs all the way into the dead of night, preventing kris from being granted any ounce of sleep for days on end, until finally, kris had had enough.

kris wu is a man who gets what he wants.

and this face without even the benefit of a name is what he needs.

kris needed to get this out of his system before he was slowly driven mad. so kris had pursued, sending his personal secretary to hunt down the name of the man who works at the tiny bookstore tucked away between the towering business district office buildings (the location of which kris would never admit to have had memorized).

and kris had wooed this man, this junmyeon, until he finally caved in, never once catching on that kris only courted him in secret, under the guise of darkness, until it was too late.

kris was a man determined, and junmyeon never had a choice.

and two years have passed since then, admittedly two of the best years kris has ever had in his life, minus the secrecy.

if only it didn’t have to be this way…

breathing a heavy sigh, kris wonders if he could leave his wife, walk away from his family and fully commit himself to junmyeon, if it’s even an option for kris to be able to have a full, happy life with him.

and kris finds himself thinking that he’d rather not drag junmyeon into his kind of world, an impeccably suited and well groomed bulletproof tank of rabid wolves and sharks of the corrupted upper-class and jaded high society.

kris desires with all his heart to keep junmyeon free and untainted by the avarice and backstabbing and shady dealings that are so commonplace in his line of business.

and as much as kris knows junmyeon would end his life without even a bat of his eyes should kris command, kris, too, is under junmyeon’s mercy just as much.

as far as they have come together, kris knows that he would never be able to walk away without at least clawing out a good chunk of his own heart before leaving it behind with this amazing, beautiful man.

and kris begins to wonder if it’s not he who never had a choice, not the other way around.

expelling the last puff of smoke from his lungs, kris flicks the remainder of his cigarette over the rails, watching the faintly glowing embers plummet down into the busy streets until it’s completely swallowed by the darkness.

taking care to slowly, silently glide the glass door open, kris quietly pads back into the room, carefully slipping under the sheets as junmyeon, still deeply asleep, subconsciously shifts his body to curl closer into kris’ arms.