Vanilla (1/1)

The day after the gallery opening, Nichkhun woke up early because he and his wife were going to a brunch with the neighbors. On his way downstairs, he noticed that the door to Chansung’s room was open, and the bed looked like it hadn’t been slept in. Khun assumed that his brother-in-law had spent the night at Wooyoung’s place, but focused hard on not to think about what exactly they had been doing there. The brunch went by slowly. The neighbor’s wife was nice enough, but the neighbor kept telling weird wordplay jokes that Nichkhun never really got. Therefore he felt very relieved when they arrived back home. When Khun entered the living room, Chansung was lying on the sofa, looking kind of hung over, watching some day-time television. Seeing him, Nichkhun got reminded of what his wife had told him last night, that he wasn’t Chan’s type. Honestly, he was feeling kind of bothered about it. Ever since he came to Korea, he hadn’t met a single girl that didn’t like him. His high school nickname The Thai Prince didn’t come out of nowhere and he was used to being everyone’s type. Nichkhun didn’t see why it had to be any different if the other person was a man. If a guy was attracted to men, Khun should be one of them. But then again, he hadn’t spent so much time with his brother-in-law, so maybe Chan just didn’t know him yet. He greeted Chansung shortly and sat down in a nearby chair. After watching TV for a few minutes, Nichkhun blurted out:“Chansung-ah, you haven’t found yourself a gym yet, right?”With a tired and bit raspy voice, Chansung answered casually:

“No, not yet.”“Well, if you want, you could join me to the gym tomorrow and I’ll show you around. You can see if you like it?” Nichkhun asked, waiting a bit nervously for the answer, which came quickly:“Sure, I’d like that.”Nichkhun’s face lit up in a smile, suddenly he was looking forward to the coming day. *** The entire morning, Nichkhun had been sending his brother-in-law some of his sweetest smiles, but hadn’t gotten any reaction at all and was getting kind of frustrated. His smile usually got him whatever he wanted, so it was irritating that Chansung seemed completely immune. Khun had even considered sending him one of his killer winks, but it was hard to fit it in a normal conversation without looking weird. But now they were at the gym, and Nichkhun was very confident in his upper body. He worked hard to maintain it, and it had made more than one girl faint. Besides, gay guys were probably more into well-toned bodies than cute smiles. So now he would prove one time and for all, that there was nobody whose type didn’t include Nichkhun. But as they entered the main hall, Chansung just started working out on his own, completely oblivious to Nichkhun’s attempts to flex his muscles, and trying to show them in the best light. Eventually losing his patience, Khun asked his brother-in-law to spot him, while he did some bench presses. But no matter how much he lifted, even though his muscles were bursting, Chansung seemed completely unaffected and just spotted him professionally, obviously no stranger to any type of work out. Honestly, if Khun hadn’t seen Chansung with his tongue down another man’s throat, he would have seriously doubted that he was gay. When he was completely at his limit, unable to lift another gram, Khun signaled Chansung to stop and sat up. His brother-in-law sat next to him on the bench, fixing his shoe laces. Really frustrated Nichkhun blurted out:“Do you think I’m vanilla?”Staring back at him, Chansung was obviously a bit confused by the sudden question. Nichkhun repeated:“I mean, do you think I’m mundane… boring?”Then Chan laughed out loud saying:“I think you’re more vanilla than all the vanilla ice cream in Korea put together.”Nichkhun felt his heart shrink, and he stared disappointed at the floor, feeling the corner of his eyes getting hot, and his throat tightening. Honestly he was feeling really pissed. Why did Chansung have to be so completely immune to his charm. Especially when Khun always felt so nervous and insecure around his brother-in-law, so it was really unfair that out of all the people in the world, the only one not affected by his charm would have to be Chansung. It was really not fair. Apparently his moodiness showed, because Nichkhun felt a hand on his chin, softly pushing his face up.  He didn’t meet Chansung’s eyes, he just couldn’t, but he heard him say with the softest voice:“Please, don’t pout… it’s hard on me if you pout.”Quickly, Khun looked up, kind of shy. Even though Chansung’s voice was quiet, and the hall was really noisy with lots of people working out, to Nichkhun there was nothing clearer than Chansung’s next words:“…besides… I didn’t say it was bad.”Startled, a small smile appeared on Khun’s face. Seeing it, Chansung smiled at him gently and then he stood up and continued his work out, leaving Khun alone on the bench, feeling like his heart had completely stopped beating. Somehow, Nichkhun managed to finish his work out, and it was time to go home. Only when he started changing his clothes, standing next to his brother-in-law, he realized that he hadn’t thought things trough when he came up with this stupid gym idea. He was so not ready to shower naked with a gay guy, especially not his brother-in-law. That was just too far from his comfort zone. Khun panicked, and didn’t know how to proceed or what could be done with the situation. While he was freaking out, Chansung had undressed, and was standing there with a towel covering his lower half.“Hyung, I’ll go first and be really quick.”Surprised, Nichkhun looked at him in slight panic. Chansung just laughed quietly and let three of his fingers graze Khun’s jaw line gently, saying:“Don’t worry hyung.  I won’t upset your sweet little vanilla world.”He smiled softly, turned around and went into the showers. Nichkhun watched him walk away and unconsciously his hand cupped his face where Chansung’s fingers had been, trying to calm down the sparks of electricity that the touch had created. Before long, Chansung came back, dripping wet, only his lower body cowered by his towel. He kind of looked like a model from a gay magazine, Nichkhun thought. With that muscular well proportional body, that handsome face, and tiny drops of water all over his naked skin, that was definitely something gays would like to look at.“And then maybe… If it would be ‘that’ kind of magazine… Chansung would lose the towel.”Nichkhun shook his head, getting rid of the all too vivid image, and hurried into the shower before more pages from that imaginary magazine would start appearing in his mind. But later in the night, when they were back home and casually eating dinner, his mind went back to that perfect wet body. It was just objective admiration though, he told himself, because Chansung’s body was really well built. Extremely well built, actually. Somehow Nichkhun managed to get through dinner and when they finished, Victoria said:“Hey guys, want some desert?”They agreed, and she continued:“We’ve got some ice cream: chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. What do you want?”“Chocolate” Nichkhun answered absentmindedly, and Chan asked for vanilla.“Vanilla? But you’ve always been a strawberry kind of guy?” Victoria asked his brother. Looking straight into Nichkhun’s eyes, without a hint of shame Chansung answered:“Vanilla is kind of growing on me…”Khun gulped. He nervously started blinking his eyes faster and his heart beat turned up to that crazy speed that only seemed to happen around his brother-in-law.Victoria brought the ice cream, and started chatting about her day. All the while Chansung was looking straight at Nichkhun, eating his vanilla ice cream very seductively. Khun was not an idiot. He knew he was being teased, that there was no real meaning behind any of this. It was simply Chansung making fun of him. But still he couldn’t look away, not even for a second. He was hypnotized by his brother-in-law’s bedroom stares and how sexily he licked the spoon. The worst and the best was when Chansung seductively licked his lips and Nichkhun could see hints of white ice cream on his tongue. That was something that was going to hunt his dreams for a long time.