Page 8 of Damian & Jun, Episodes 1-4 (The Residency Boys #6)

It had to be an oversight. They’d grabbed all his cards to stop him from trying to pay a lawyer and…

No .

He was locked in.

And if he made a scene, then Bak would have public proof he was going crazy because who would lock a world-famous pop star in their dormitory? It was much more likely that a highly strung artistic type had merely experienced a mix-up and then went off the rails.

He’d given Bak years of his life. Proven himself again and again. Why would Bak do this to him? How had he not been good enough? Maybe he was just too needy.

But Damian liked him needy. He said Jun was barely needy at all. Maybe that was because Damian only saw him for stolen snatches of time. It wasn’t like he’d ever offered Damian all his problems and begged for help.

Damian was his escape, his fantasy.

Jun sank into his chair.

Maybe he should actually go on the date.

Deal with whatever followed. He owed it to his group, to his fans, everyone who loved his work and his music and dancing, to keep 5N together and productive.

They’d all invested in him, given him their time and attention and effort. Maybe he should just keep the peace.

Make the sacrifice.

He put his face in his hands. He could, he supposed.

But then he’d have to tell Damian. It wasn’t like they were exclusive or anything.

Damian thought he was the only one in Jun’s life.

Damian had been honest that he occasionally went on dates and he did have sex with people in The Residency, which was what he called his chosen family he lived with.

It was easier than listing everyone and their relationships off, so it made sense they’d picked a name for it.

It still felt like cheating for Jun to go on the date without talking to Damian first. No logical argument for it, just gut instinct.

Damian would be so angry if Jun used anything Damian had taught him about sex to hurt himself.

Somehow, that would be worse than cheating. He couldn’t say why; he just knew.

Damian was intense about those kinds of things.

And hurting himself was exactly what he would be doing if he took this date with the police chief.

He thumped his head against his hands. He wanted Damian. He needed a voice outside of 5N and BBB3 and everything else swirling around him. Someone to tell him where the ground was, what color the sky was, and how to be sure of himself.

The window was right there. He looked at it through his fingers. Third floor up. He could totally make it down…but not in broad daylight.

Wait, was he seriously thinking about this? Escaping ?

The SIM card in his house shoe pressed against his skin.

Yes , yes, he was.

The world tilted a little more to the side.

Colors intensified, becoming a little more unreal.

The physical objects around him drew back.

He was there, and yet everything else was just off, just out of reach.

This was the unreal place where he did things he didn’t think he could do, where things he didn’t believe were happening happened.

The only way through this was forward. One just had to pretend everything was fine and keep acting like it until they were. Just ignore the sense of unreality. Which he could do. He’d been doing it on and off for years.

He stood up and cleaned his room. All of it.

Even the wet stuff he draped over his bed to dry.

He cleared his desk and organized all the papers he had been looking over.

Most of them were still there. It looked like one or two had been snatched.

He put everything in places he could reach easily.

Then he pulled out his notebook of lyrics and checked his list of songwriting assignments pinned to his wall.

It crossed his mind as he worked that there might be a camera on him.

Didn’t matter. He’d take it into consideration, but it didn’t change what he had to do.

His brain spat lyrics onto the page. Whether they were good or bad, he didn’t care.

He wrote them down all the same with notations and rhythm suggestions.

There was one part of him watching for activity in the hallway, one part of him making sure he looked like a good worker bee, and one part of him that was just waiting.

No one came or went. Which made sense. It was Christmas.

Not a major holiday but a holiday, and their comeback recording wasn’t scheduled for a couple more weeks.

5N had just wrapped up five intense weeks of promotions, and everyone was ready for downtime even though they normally would have been doing something for the holiday, Bak hadn’t scheduled them for anything not prerecorded this year, which was odd.

Yohei was in Japan for the New Year with his family.

And Geun, Jaewoong, and Su-jin had gone back to their hometowns yesterday.

Only Jun had nowhere to go. He could have taken one of them up on an offer to visit their family, but he hadn’t been feeling it.

He’d wanted the downtime to make sense of the mess.

And he had no money to travel with or give gifts with anyway. Which would have been rude.

The hours wore past. Fortunately, he had water and snacks though nothing amounting to an actual meal. He ate and drank and worked. Somehow, the need to pretend to be all right helped him to be all right. It was just a normal day. He was writing normal music.

He was not writing normal music.

He was doing his job.

He was pretending to do his job.

He was just a normal guy in his twenties hanging out in his room.

He was locked in his room.

He was fine.

He was fine.

Sometime after sundown, footsteps in the hall startled him. Someone put a hand to his door and opened it. Jun looked up sharply and squinted. The damn hallway light did not have to be so bright.

Bak stood in the doorway with a mango lassi in a to-go cup. He could smell it from his desk. There were one or two people behind him but not where Jun could see them.

“It’s late,” Bak said.

Jun shrugged. For the hours he often kept, that was a blatant lie. “I’ve got work to catch up on. There’re due dates on these songs.”

Bak huffed. “Don’t worry about them. No one is going to sweat it until after New Year’s.”

“And then I’ll have other things to do.” Jun raised and dropped one shoulder again. “Anyway, your guys swiped the key card by accident with the bank cards and I need to do laundry. And I need to take these songs down to the music room and play with them.”

There, Bak. I’m playing your game. I’m not going to say you locked me in to give me a time-out, but I’m going to tell you what you’re missing out on if you keep me here.

“So that’s why you never came down to see me?” Bak said.

Jun waved at the hall. “Not really going anywhere with those doors, boss.”

“Well, at least you had some peace and quiet. Here, lassi, your favorite.” Bak put the drink down.

Jun looked at it. It was one of his favorites. But it was also packed with calories. Considering how little he’d had to eat that day, he could afford them, but it just felt…wrong.

“Thanks. I’m watching my weight, though. Probably shouldn’t drink all of it.”

“It’s the holidays. Relax a little. At least give yourself a bit of a treat. It’ll settle you down so you can sleep.”

“Hmm. Maybe.” Jun sighed and made a show of drinking from the straw, but he didn’t actually put anything in his mouth.

Bak smiled and nodded and backed out the door.

“Make sure they bring the swipe card back,” Jun tossed out after him.

“Sure. Sure.” Bak moved away.

It’ll settle you down so you can sleep. The words played over in Jun’s mind. Why would Bak bring him a treat? Was it just Bak pretending everything was all right again, or was there some other motive?

It didn’t matter. His mind was made up.

He stood up, stretching and moving around the room, pretended to drink a few more times, stretched, and yawned, then took his notebook to the bed and chanted the words he’d written out loud while he tied his extra duvet cover and a bunch of scarves together under the duvet where a camera wouldn’t see his hands.

He had to estimate how long it was when he’d finished, but he was in very good shape.

If he could get even halfway down the building, he’d be fine.

He stood up and drank the very last of his water. He hadn’t had enough to drink today, a quarter of what he normally had. Muscles were tight. Eyes were crusty. Too much more of this and he’d be sick. But that was a problem for another day.

He lay in bed and tossed and turned, using the movement to hide the fact he was bundling up his “rope” and putting on his sneakers. Hugging his “covers” to his chest, he went to the window, pretending to yawn again, and opened it, screen and all, hanging his head outside.

Then he shoved the bundle out the window, the end already looped to the headboard of his bunk, and jumped out after it.

The cold air hit him hard. He hadn’t been able to dress for winter, but he had gotten a jacket on over his sweater right before he jumped.

Ten seconds flat, and he was down the side of the building. Gigi would be so impressed. His feet hit the sidewalk. Someone was walking toward him, head down against the wind. He turned before they could see his face. Somewhere, an alarm went off deep in the building.

Time to be gone.

He took off into the night, running into the first alley he crossed and doubling down through a bisecting back way.

Fuck, he wanted Damian right now. It would be perfect if he’d pull up in a cab, open the door, and tell him to get in. Christmas lights inviting couples in for a holiday date at bars and restaurants only made the feeling worse. He and Damian had never done that. They’d never dared.

Rain coated Jun’s face. It wasn’t a heavy downpour, just…enough. His feet slapped on wet pavement.

Keep it moving, Jun. Just keep it moving.

The lights of the streets blurred past him, their shine dissected by rain.