Page 28 of Damian & Jun: Episodes 1-4
“Thank you.” He extended his hand.
She didn’t make any move to hand it to him, stuck staring at his face. “I’m a fan, you know, in your official fan club. I’m a NowNow.”
Jun sighed and hung his head. Shit! Bak was going to have his location down in a second. NowNows talked, a lot. About everything. Usually, he liked to talk to NowNows. They were his career, and he loved making them happy, but tonight, a NowNow was a liability.
“Could you keep this quiet, please?”
She blinked some more and turned her phone around, extending it unlocked. “Are you in trouble?”
“You could say that.”
“Can I help?”
Jun scrolled through her apps, looking for the one he needed. She had the same encoded one he used with Damian. Strange. He held it up. “Mind if I log in?”
She frowned but nodded. “Go ahead. I’m not logged in right now.”
Jun typed in his username and password and waited for the app to come up. There was enough encryption on this particular messaging app that it actually took more than a second.
“Please, really, don’t tell anyone.”
She straightened in her chair and mimed locking her lips and throwing away the key. He forced a smile.
She smiled back in an awkward way. “Did you get mugged?”
Jun shook his head. The app popped up, ready to communicate. He gave a ragged sigh. “I’m going to step over there and make a call. I…I won’t run off with your phone.”
She shrugged. “If you steal it, then I’ll really have a good story.”
Jun tapped Damian’s contact information, hitting call instead of text for the first time. He’d never dared before, but tonight was a night of firsts. Damian wasn’t going to like what he needed to ask, so he might as well do it the best he could.
Damian answered almost right away. “Jun.”
The man’s voice… Jun’s throat closed up, and his eyes filled with tears. He squeezed them shut, turning his back to the woman at the counter and wiping them away.
“Hey.” He could barely make himself speak.
“Are you okay?” Damian’s care and concern flooded the question, giving Jun’s goosebumps.
Jun lowered his voice and switched to English. “I— Damian… I…I need you to buy me.” He put his back against the wall by the refrigerators at the farthest end of the store from the door and slid down until he was sitting in the fetal position on the floor.
This was the answer. He wouldn’t mind Damian owning him. Then no one else could.
“Jun? Buy you? What’s going on?” Damian’s voice dropped an octave.
Jun shivered. Most of the time, Damian was easygoing, but this… sharp focus and warmth was going to destroy him. He wanted to throw himself through the phone and beg Damian to hold him and make all his problems go away when he used that voice. Damian could lock him up and throw away the key, as long as he used this voice and took away all the weight on Jun’s shoulders.
“Buy me. I need you to buy me.” It was such a simple solution. Damian could own him, and he could hide beneath the other man’s warm body and do whatever he wanted, knowing the world wouldn’t fall apart. He’d be warm. Damian always made him warm. And food. There would be food.
“That’s…not a thing! Jun, what’s going on? Where are you?”
Jun shivered, dragging his thoughts away from thoughts of hotels and warm baths. “I ran away. I crawled out of the window of my dorm, and I ran. If I don’t do what he says by New Year’s, then he’s going to have me locked up.” Like a bird in a birdcage. Like Rei.
“Do you have money?”
“No.”
“But you have a phone?
