Page 15 of Damian & Jun, Episodes 1-4 (The Residency Boys #6)

Fuck. He owed all of them an apology. He’d been too shocked and sleepy to offer one the night before.

Mi Hi and Richard were in the sitting area of the suite between the private rooms, Richard on one couch and Mi Hi and Gigi on the one at an angle to him.

Richard was sitting back, his ankle raised to rest over his opposite knee.

They appeared to have been talking but broke off as soon as the door squeaked.

Mi Hi jumped up from her couch and pressed her hands together. “It fits.”

Jun nodded. “Thank you. You’re awesome. And you really didn’t have to stay.”

She tilted her head to the side and smirked. “And miss the drama? Don’t be crazy. This is the most fun I’ve had in years.”

Jun laughed, ruefully. “What about your job?”

Mi Hi chuckled. “I called in sick. This is better than a TV drama.”

Jun rolled his eyes. “So glad you’re amused.”

She laughed outright.

Jun turned toward Richard. The business mogul was just as intimidating as the night before or perhaps more, now that Jun knew what it felt like to sit on his lap and feel the man’s hands on his knee.

Meeting some important people in person took the mystic out of their personality.

Not so with Richard Reevesworth. Meeting him just made him more… everything.

Jun swallowed. “I apologize for my behavior last night.”

Richard inclined his head. “Did I pass?”

“Yes.”

Richard nodded, eyes soft. He looked as patient as an old god in a painting. As if nothing could ruffle him. “You are very direct.”

Jun’s cheeks burned. He dropped his eyes.

“I appreciate that. Damian needs a partner who is direct.”

Jun looked up fast. There was nothing judgmental in the older man’s face. If anything, he looked pleased.

Damian grumbled and wrapped both arms around Jun.

Gigi bounced on the couch. “Let’s eat. I’m starved. Feed me before some of you start looking delicious.”

Mi Hi smothered a laugh. “Doesn’t that mean…”

Jun widened his eyes and shook his head. No matter what came out of Gigi’s mouth, it was better not to tell her when she made accidental sex jokes. Mi Hi, however, couldn’t resist poking the elephant in the room.

“So, which is more delicious, boys or girls?”

Gigi looked up from piling food onto her tray and stared straight into Mi Hi’s face. “Girls. Girls are more delicious.”

Mi Hi’s face turned a fiery pink, and she started poking and prodding the breakfast spread like it was a sampling of dangerous secrets and not an extravagant Korean take on a continental breakfast.

Gigi turned to Jun, apparently not noticing the devastation she’d just left behind her. “Everyone is here but Yohei, and I don’t think anyone even noticed. Yohei got himself a hotel near BBB3. I’m going to go meet him to help, but we need someone to pass stuff off to in case they chase us.”

Jun blinked. “You’re planning on being chased?” Since when had he hung out with so many people who broke the law?

Probably since you started hanging out with Bak , a dry internal voice shot back at him. He clammed up. Gigi, however, hadn’t noticed. She was looking at Damian. “Will you do it? You would be perfect. We can’t use any of the boys.”

Damian glanced at Jun, then nodded. “I’ll stand out.”

“Yeah, but you’re foreign.” Gigi shrugged, shoving more food in her mouth with her long metal chopsticks. “You’re like visible but insta-invisible. Just stand there like a tourist and act stupid if anyone talks to you, pretend you only speak a little English and no Korean.”

“Something tells me you’ve done this before,” Jun muttered.

Gigi batted her eyes at him. Her phone chimed, and she grinned. “Su-jin, Jaewoong, and Geun are up. They’re coming here for breakfast. Two minutes. They’re just trying to leave the staircase without being seen.”

Richard stood smoothly and went to the door. He disappeared and returned a minute later followed by the trio, bowing their greetings like ducklings as they entered past him.

Su-jin, their maknae — the youngest — threw himself on Jun. “Hyung ! Jun—ah! You…you… You scared me!”

Jun laughed regretfully, patting Su-jin on the back and practically holding his entire bandmate in his lap as the twenty-two year old made himself into a clinging ball. “I’m sorry.”

Su-jin said something, but his face was crushed so tight against Jun’s chest that he couldn’t understand.

“Breathe. Take a breath. Can you do that for me, Pika?”

Su-jin sniffled and leaned back, wiping his face. “I was worried. So worried. You were sad and then you…you…ah!”

“I’d never. I promise.” Jun took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

Of course, Su-jin would have jumped to that possibility.

Sometimes he just wanted to bundle his maknae up in a soft blanket and hide the kid from the world even though he’d already finished military service.

It helped that he’d done service with Jun so he’d been able to keep an eye on him.

Not knowing how to protect his Pika from Bak had been one of the reasons he’d been so slow to make any moves.

Su-jin was the sole provider for his family since his dad had died and his mother had given up on the world.

His income had been what was keeping his mother, grandmother, and little sister afloat in the two years since he debuted.

“I’m alive and happy to be alive, I swear.

Someone made a problem for me, and I had to disappear for a minute. That’s all, I promise.”

“Promise?” Su-jin hiccupped, staring straight into Jun’s soul.

“Promise. Clean your face, drink something. Have you eaten?”

“Uh…”

Jun raise one eyebrow.

Su-jin drooped. “But my diet…”

“Pika, I’m telling you to eat, as your hyung . You’re going to need it. You don’t need to be skimping on food.”

“But boss said…”

Geun shoved a plate at Su-jin. “Bak can go fuck himself.”

Su-jin gasped.

Jun laughed ruefully. “I mean it, Pika, get some food, and drink water and anything else as long as it’s not caffeinated or alcohol. Just make sure some of it is protein. I don’t need you spinning off into space on me, got it?”

“Got it. I’ll do it.”

Jaewoong came up and bumped shoulders with Jun as Su-jin slid off his lap. “Don’t worry, I have his phone.”

Su-jin pouted at Jaewoong and moved away.

Mi Hi rested her chin on her hand and looked at Jaewoong. “Why do you have his phone?”

“Because boss scares me and calls me.” Su-jin made a face and started putting food on his plate, supervised by Geun.

Mi Hi looked between the four of them, but neither of them were more forthcoming.

Maybe someday they would tell her that they couldn’t tell Su-jin secrets if Bak was going to get to him because Bak just had a way of scaring Su-jin the way his father had scared him.

Whatever Bak wanted, it usually came out of Su-jin’s mouth.

It was like Su-jin became a child again when Bak did certain things.

“We don’t need our Pika picked on.” Jaewoong waved away the conversation. “Jun, introduce your boyfriend.”

“He’s not…”

“He totally is.” Jaewoong smirked. He held his hand out to Damian, Western style. “Pleasure to meet you. My military service is done, and I do know people who could kill you if necessary.”

“JaeJae,” Jun wailed.

“Are we supposed to still be pretending we don’t know you’re gay?” Jaewoong quirked an eyebrow.

“How? What? I NEVER did ANYTHING!”

Su-jin frowned from where he had dropped into a chair beside Gigi. “But you don’t like girls.”

“I could have been ace!”

Geun laughed in clear disagreement and shoved more food in his mouth. Somehow, he’d made himself a weird bimbap -style roll with breakfast foods. It looked amazing.

Damian pulled Jun into his lap. Jun squawked.

No one cared. Damian put his chin on Jun’s shoulder, speaking past him in Korean.

“My name is Damian Sathers, attorney at law, from Chicago. Pleased to meet you. Jun is my person.” He repeated himself in English with a nod to Gigi, who clapped her hands.

Mi Hi was sitting straight up like a statue, blushing hard, her hands fisted together.

If she looked any more like she was going to melt, someone was going to have to draw little heart signs over her eyes.

The guys all greeted Damian. Damian made introductions between them and Richard and mentioned who Mung and the bodyguards were though she and they were not present. Jun just sat in his lap, cheeks on fire.

Damian and Richard were getting along just a little too well with Geun, Jaewoong, and Su-jin. Different parts of his life were crashing together, and he felt dizzy.

Happy, dizzy, and completely lost.

Damian’s arms tightened around his waist.

Maybe he wasn’t completely lost.

Mi Hi rapped her knuckles on the coffee table. “When are we holding the press conference and calling the police? NowNows are going crazy online.”

Another reason to keep Su-jin’s phone from him.

Jun frowned and twisted around to look at Damian.

“We need to get you off the missing persons list, baby,” Damian said softly. “A phone call to the police, immediately followed by a press conference will accomplish that.”

“Phone call, not going in?”

“Yes. I spoke to Yun, my counterpart here, this morning. Mung booked a room here at the hotel in case we decide to go through with it.”

Mi Hi leaned forward. “You need to talk to the NowNows and give them proof that you're okay.”

He’d done hundreds of press conferences but never one without Bak practically whispering in his ear, telling him what to say.

“So, I just… go up and tell everyone I’m fine? Leave out everything else? They’re going to ask why I was missing.”

“I think”—Mi Hi looked around and then pushed on, gathering confidence—“you should just say you were with friends and you don’t know why you were declared missing. The story is you went out to meet friends and never arrived. Damian and Richard are very good friends.”

“Scary friends,” Jaewoong agreed. “You should show your faces.”

Jun blushed. “I’m not using them like that.”