South Korea
They arrive in Seoul at 8, only an hour and a half later, and all head to an hotel in which they fall back asleep almost instantly. After ten whole days, Remus has kind of gotten used to Sirius’ presence next to him as he sleeps, but he’ll never get used to the way Sirius sometimes reaches out for him in his sleep, muttering nonsense and clutching at Remus’ arm, or hand or once, hair, probably entranced in a bad dream. Today is a day like this, with Remus wanting to sleep but unable to as Sirius next to him keeps shuddering and tightening his hand around Remus’. He thinks that maybe Sirius is cold, so he pulls a blanket up on his shoulders where it has ridden down. As soon as the blanket hits Sirius’ shoulders, he gasps in his sleep and sighs, melting on his pillow. Mission accomplished, Remus thinks, and closes his eyes back down, readying himself to fall back asleep when he hears a moan next to him.
Remus stills everything and thinks, a horrible, concerning voice in the back of his head: Oh no.
Please no. I won’t survive it.
Remus feels Sirius moving next to him and opens his eyes, readying himself for the worst, when he sees Sirius wriggling against the bed, his hand still clutching Remus’. His eyes are closed tightly when he does the worst thing he could’ve ever done. The thing that Remus is sure will haunt him for the rest of his life. Sirius, for an excruciating moment, gasps and lets Remus’ name fall from his lips as he shudders again.
Fuck me. Literally what have I ever done to you? He asks the gods above, if there’s any, that is. Why do you keep punishing me?
He thinks immediately that he must get out of here as soon as possible. Must get time alone to think of this and let his thoughts get back in order. Must get his cock back in order too, if the straining in his pyjama bottoms is enough to get by. He snatches his hand free from Sirius’ and bolts towards the bathroom where he locks himself and sags against the door in relief. He closes his eyes and sees Sirius, looking every bit like an angel with his raven hair splayed over the pillow, his pink plush lips moaning Remus’ name and his arms shuddering. Remus gives up every kind of pretence he ever had and pushes his pyjama bottoms down, finds himself as hard as ever, painfully so, he realises now, and takes care of it quickly before readying himself and going back to sleep. He’s still tired as hell and maybe this cheeky wank in the bathroom will help. Except that when she enters the bedroom, he finds Sirius on his back on the bed, head thrown back and legs spread, hand in the middle.
So, not much doubt about the nature of the dream then.
“What the hell!” he yells, turning around with such force he almost does a 360, planting his head against the wall.
“Shit!” he hears Sirius curse. You think it’s funny, don’t you? Really going to punish me all my life for being gay are you? What happened to ‘love thy neighbour?’, Remus asks the Gods above in his mind.
“Fucking hell, I sleep in that bed!” he groans, finding his voice somewhat too low, even for a morning. He glances down to find his cock hard again and really wasn’t that enough already? But no, Sirius had to go and do that and give that mental image to Remus. Of fucking course.
“I was gonna change the sheets! I’m not an animal!” Sirius explains in a high voice, obviously panicking about this. As if Remus never caught him with a girl back at school.
“Yeah sure cause room service leaves sheets everywhere in the rooms.” He rolls his eyes. Has Sirius never gone to an hotel?
“Uh.” He comes up short. The idiot, Remus thinks. The hot, mind-blowingly sexy idiot. Remus’ wettest nightmare.
Remus sighs, “Are you decent? Can I turn around?”
“Sure. I still have a boner though, since you cockblocked me.” Sirius says cheekily, and Remus has murderous ideas.
“There’s a bathroom for that.” He mumbles gruffly.
Sirius grins and wriggles his eyebrows, “So that’s what you were doing in the bathroom!”
Ridiculously, because he’s the one who caught Sirius and not the other way around, he feels a blush crippling up his nose and on the back of his ears. “Fuck off.” He mutters and lays on the bed, back to Sirius. He can be a petty bitch if he wants to be.
“Aw! You’re not that much of a prude then!” he coos, and Remus really wants to kill him now, and not for sexy reasons.
“I’m a prude?” he raises his eyebrows as he turns back around to see Sirius, who’s grinning at him like an idiot who’s way too proud of his joke.
“Yeah. You never, ever talk about sex and every time you’ve walked into me and some girl, you didn’t talk to me for weeks. Prude.” He tilts his head as if he’s making a fair point. Like Remus didn’t talk to him because one: seeing him with someone else made his skin crawl and two: seeing him with very little clothes on made his skin burn.
Remus lays back on his back and says nothing, waiting for the moment Sirius will just drop it and let him sleep. Silent treatment hardly ever works on Sirius, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
“I mean, obviously there’s nothing wrong with being a virgin, but like, you can still talk about it. I talked about it all the time and I had no idea what I was talking about back then.” He explains, and somehow, Remus stills for a moment. Does Sirius really means it as an apology? What an idiot. He lays back up on his elbows.
“You think I’m a virgin?” he raises both his eyebrows, staring at Sirius. How could he think that, especially when he was around when Remus had his first and only boyfriend, at the wonderful age of fifteen?
Sirius stares at Remus, incredulous look in his eyes, “You’re not?” his eyes are wide and shocked, and really, how did he not know?
“You do know I had a boyfriend for about a year?” he asks slowly, as if talking to a child, “You know. Kingsley. The guy you hated for being lovely.”
Recognition passes on Sirius’ face and he nods, blinking a few times, “Yeah, right. I’d forgotten. Right. Kingsley.” He says with such bitterness that Remus can’t help but laugh. It never made any sense that Sirius would hate King, always saying that he was a swot and couldn’t take a joke to save his life when King was hands down the funniest person he ever met, after his three best friends obviously.
Remus smiles to himself, “So no, I’m not a virgin, I just like to keep these things to myself. Unlike you who’s always talking about every girl you shag like it’s a trophy.” He tries to let the bitterness out of his voice but fails beautifully. Sirius doesn’t seem to take the bait though.
“I’m an over-sharer.” He shrugs, “What can I say. I just told you about my boner.” He says, as if to prove a point.
Remus sighs, thinking ahead of all the desperate moments this morning will spring back in his head and throws an arm over his head to block the little light coming from the gap between the window and the curtain.
“Just go to sleep.” He says, and miraculously, Remus falls asleep almost right away.
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He still feels a bit awkward a few hours later at very late breakfast that turned into lunch when they get there, Remus following Sirius down the stairs of the hotel, trying not to think about how edible his neck looks when his head is thrown back against a pillow. Or of how bitter he sounded when Remus talked about Kingsley.
James and Peter immediately pick up on this and ask right away why Remus is keeping himself quite far from Sirius, trying carefully not to let his hand brush against his as they get their food.
“What happened here?” James asks after a minute of watching them dance around each other.
“Nothing.” Remus mumbles and spreads jam on his toast, staring intensely at the crust.
Sirius sighs loudly and turns to look at Remus, “Would you stop being a baby! So what, you saw me wank what’s the big deal? I saw James do that plenty of times!”
James’ eyebrows shoot to his hairline, “Plenty of times?”
“Okay once but still, it’s not a big deal.” Sirius corrects himself.
“It’s fine. Not a big deal.” Remus shrugs and takes marmalade to add to his toast.
“It obviously is, with how weird you’re acting.” Sirius huffs from somewhere next to him.
“I said it’s fine. Can’t we just act like nothing happened so that we can stop talking about it?” Remus pleads. Please, stop talking about anything that has to do with your body because I might not survive it.
“Yeah c’mon mate, it’s making him uncomfortable.” James says, ever the knight in shining armour.
Sirius rolls his eyes, “Fine.” He leans across the same to take the marmalade from Remus and whisper as he’s close enough, “Prude.”
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After this morning from hell, things in Korea are amazing. They visit Seoul for the first two days, then head down to Wonju, where they walk up a mountain to get to a hanging blue bridge than dangles in the middle, making Remus think of the bridge in Kung Fu Panda and making him incredibly scared to fall, as there about 300 meters of free fall before crushing his bones on trees waiting for him if the swinging bridge decides to break right there and then, under the crushing weight of one lanky Remus Lupin. He toes at the bridge, walking very slowly and grabbing both sides anytime it swings too harshly, work of James and Sirius who are running down the bridge like idiots. With his slow pace, he loses Peter too, who gets to talking with a curly headed girl with glasses and Remus finds himself walking next to one redhead he’s starting to know quite well.
“Where are the M’s?” he asks her when she gets to his level alone. She’s looking slightly petrified but smiles nevertheless.
“Marlene went to run down the bridge with your mates and some other people. And Mary got Fab to give her a piggy back ride across the bridge.” She explains, smiling fondly.
He chuckles, imagining Mary clutched on the back of Fab, “Sounds like her.”
She raises an eyebrow at him, “I thought you only spoke like one sentence to her?”
“True. But she seems like someone who’d do that.” He smiles.
She shrugs, and Remus hears the ‘Fair enough’ without needing her to say it. “What are you doing off on your own then?”
“James and Sirius are running down the bridge like idiots and Peter’s talking with a girl.” He shrugs, then thinks, “James a good guy, you know.” He does owe him one.
She raises an eyebrow, “The one with the glasses who keeps staring at me? He looks like a creep.”
He chuckles, “I swear he means well. He just thinks you’re the love of his life is all.”
“I haven’t talked to him.” She remarks.
“Well. That’s James for you.” He shrugs. “He decided we were best mates before I ever talked to him.”
She chuckles and shakes her head, “I feel like I’m gonna die on this bridge.” She says, redirecting the conversation.
“Me too. It’s the worst thing ever.” He really wants to look down, because he’s curious but he knows that it’s not a good idea. Not if he’d like to stay conscious.
“Wanna run so that we get off quicker?” Lily suggests and Remus would do anything to get off this bridge, so he agrees and kicks off running after her. They run for what feels like ages, but really it’s not more than thirty seconds, the bridge swings harshly from right to left, and Remus is too scared to do anything else but keep running and laugh, seeing Lily do the same at his side. They pass Peter and the shaggy haired girl who ogle them warily and keep laughing until they reach the other end of the bridge. Lily is still laughing as she crouches down on the grass, still wheezing, and Remus tries to catch his breath, something really difficult with his horrible cardio and his smoking habit that make him breathless for longer than an eighteen year old should be. He looks up to see Lily smiling, her eyes crinkling at the edges.
“We did it!” she announces as Sirius and James walk over to them, incredulous looks on their faces.
“You ran?” Sirius raises an eyebrow at Remus, who’s still clutching at his sides desperately, trying to get his breathing back in track.
“Maybe there’s some hope in recruiting you in the team yet.” James grins, “Knew you could use those legs.”
“Yeah.” Remus breathes out, “Cause I seem fit to run around for 90 minutes right now?”
“Imagine Moony with a football. I don’t think he’d know which goal to shoot in.” Sirius muses, too happy to make fun of him.
“He’d have to know if he had to use his feet or his hands first.” Peter continues, emerging from the bridge with the same girl, “Guys, meet Sybill.” He gestures at the girl next to him, who waves gracefully.
“Nice to meet you all.” She smiles a bit crookedly, her countless stone necklaces clinking to each other and Remus can’t really see why Peter would like her but well. It’s Peter, he likes odd things. People too, he guesses.
All three of them smile at her and return the words when a blonde figure comes to stand behind Remus, making him yelp when she talks.
“Did I hear talk about football around here?” Marlene asks, a toothpick hanging from her lips. She takes it off and twirls it on her fingers, “I heard Gid talking about a ball lying around here somewhere.”
James and Sirius look at each other and back at Marlene with giddy expressions on their faces and set off to play in a large field with Marlene, two girls, two guys and Gid, leaving Remus behind as Peter sets off with Peter. He decides to sit against a tree next to the field and flick through the pictures he took during the last two days on his Nikon. He forgot to download them on his computer yesterday, so he has pictures of him and the three other marauders, taken by Lily in front of some huge building in Seoul, and spends about thirty minutes reminiscing when a figure comes to sit on the tree right next to him.
He looks up and sees a blonde guy, with his hair parted in two parts and falling around his ears. He’s wearing a white shirt, blue jeans and vans shoes, and Remus thinks that if he wasn’t so infatuated with his best friend, he’d probably develop a crush on him. He looks gorgeous, and there’s something about him that makes Remus think that he’s not necessarily straight.
Ever the awkward person he is, Remus doesn’t acknowledge him and continues to look at his pictures absently until he hears a low voice over his shoulder.
“You’re not playing with your mates?” he asks, looking straight at Remus. Still, Remus looks behind him just in case and hears the blonde chuckling when he does. “I’m talking to you, you know.”
Remus chuckles awkwardly, “Sorry. Not a fan of football.” He explains curtly and looks back at the field, where Marlene and Sirius are cheering around James who apparently just scored. He smiles when James imitates one of those footballers he’s always talking about and crosses his arms over his chest, letting his thumb stick out from under his armpits.
“Me neither.” The blonde says, “I’m Alex, by the way.”
Remus looks back at him and thinks that yeah, he does look like an Alex. “Remus.”
“Funny name, that.” He chuckles and looks ahead at the game in front of him that seems to have ended, with Sirius, James, Marlene and a black girl with long locks he doesn’t know walking over to him. He stands up to meet them, and laughs and Sirius runs over to him, and tackles him on the grass.
“Get off you big oaf!” Remus chuckles as Sirius starts to hug Remus with a force that Remus is used to. They have been friends for seven years, after all.
“Thank you Moony for making friends with Blondie! She’s a fucking force!” Sirius swears, plucks a very wet kiss on Remus’ cheek that ought to make him uncomfortable but really does the opposite and stands back up, circling his arm around James.
“And I don’t get a kiss?” James asks with his eyebrows raised, staring down at Sirius.
“Pfft.” He rolls his eyes dramatically, “You didn’t do anything except staring at the redhead since Tokyo. Remus got us the best defence since Marquinhos!”
Marlene giggles, “Thanks man, but James was great. He did score more than you did.” She adds sheepishly.
“Yeah, he’s loads better than you.” The black girl nods, siding next to Marlene.
“I take it back. You’re all garbage.” Sirius flicks his hair back and leaves, only stopping in front of Remus, “Thanks for nothing.” He huffs and leaves, followed by James who’s apologising after him, despite having done absolutely nothing. That’s James for you.
Remus chuckles and looks back to Alex, who saw the whole situation unravel, and shrugs, “So, that was my friends.”
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The 4th day is spent at the frontier between South and North Korea, listening to a Korean man walk them back through the history, the war and the people who’ve tried to cross it. It’s punctuated by the odd joke from Sirius and James and a fight about which of them would have the guts to try to cross it. In the end, Remus and Peter have to reason with them, tell them that they would totally lose their heads if they did, and in the end, James and Sirius remain of South Korean territory, which is better for everyone involved, even if it means trailing behind them a sulking Sirius who really wanted to see North Korea, for some obscure reason.
Days 5th, 6th and 7th are spent in the south of the country, between Taegu, Ulsan, Pohang and Busan, visiting the cities and the museums – they are in an organized trip after all – and have an amazing time. Remus mostly sticks to his three best friends, even if Peter sometimes sneaks out of their group to hang out with Sybill and James is still staring at the back of Lily’s head, even after Remus told him she thought he was a creep. The thought horrified him, but he thought that perhaps staring at her with an apology in his eyes would be better, which completely negates the idea. Sirius makes fun of him for it, whispering jokes and jabs in Remus’ ear, and Remus smiles, always loving how Sirius lets him on theses secret jokes and confidences, how they have some things meant for just the two of them. It’s not a lot but Remus Lupin is a man starved, and he will take anything if it means feeding the beast in his chest who’s dangerously in love with his best friend.
When Sirius is off on some mischief or other with James and Peter goes with Sybill, Remus finds himself walking with Lily and the M's or on the occasion, with Alex. He explains to him, as they walk along the streets of Busan in the slight heat of the middle of May, that he was the only one taken from his school and doesn’t know anyone. He made friends with a few guys from a school in Nottingham, but he’s still quite lost, and Remus feels bad for him. He’d hate to be thrown across the world all alone, without James’ gentleness, Sirius’ wit and Peter’s wiseness. He and Alex talk for a while, until Moody tells them to find back their pairs and get in the bus back to Taegu, where their hotel rooms are awaiting. Sirius appears at his side with a frown, eyeing Alex like a rock stuck in his shoe and dismisses him entirely, shoving his hands in his pockets and talks to Remus about his and James’ earlier prank; putting salt in people’s drinks at some coffee shop, which is very mean and undoubtedly hilarious.
On the eighth day, they take a plane to Jeju, an island whose history is tragic and beautiful. They start up a trek on a mountain, and Remus finds himself cursing his bad lungs, heart and legs more than once. He’s trailing behind once again, with Sirius up with Marlene and the black girl with who they played football – whose name turns out to be Dorcas, if James is to be believed – James is all the way at the top with a couple of tough guys who look every bit like gym bros and Peter is off with Sybill and her best friend, a dreamy blonde girl named Pandora, and Remus is anything but surprised that they’d be friends. Lily and Mary are somewhere with Gideon, who they’ve taken an interest with, and Remus is again talking with Alex, who is poorly acting like he’s as exhausted as Remus. It’s clear that he's fine and doesn’t need to be going at Remus’ slow pace, and it’s kind of annoying him.
“Why are you going so slow? You’re fine, you don’t need to stick with me.” He says, trying not to be too crude.
“I like hanging with you.” He shrugs, and Remus rolls his eyes. He looks at Alex and can see a faint blush on his face, and he somehow feels the same way he did when Emmeline Vance asked him out in seventh grade. How to let down someone great gently?
You don’t. Act like you’re the most clueless man on earth. Act like Sirius Black.
“You’re going to miss the view. It’s really supposed to be beautiful up there.” He says, instead of a rejection. Then he thinks that maybe he’s a huge headed arsehole and Alex doesn’t like him in the slightest and he’s made up this fantasy in his head because he really, really wants someone to like him. Well, maybe not Alex, but someone.
“I think the view here’s nice.” He shrugs, and Remus thinks he’s right; even still walking up the mountain, they can see the valley and the wild river weaselling its way through the forest, and the other mountains with the tips covered in snow. It makes Remus think that he would’ve really liked to see the Mount Fuji, but well. This is the next best thing.
He voices his thoughts to Alex anyway, to change conversations, and they talk about the rest of the trip, what they’re most excited to see and what they’re curious about. Remus says that he’s most excited to see Brazil and Morroco, and Alex talks more about Greece and the USA. Remus laughs at him when he talks about ABBA, and ‘needing to see the land of Mamma Mia’ which is making him think about James so bad, and therefore smile. After half an hour, they get at the top of the mountain, where everyone already is and Remus gasps when he sees it: a valley with clear, almost turquoise water, waterfalls at every side and the sky an orange colour as the sun starts to set. He’s still gaping at the sight, something that seems to happen more often than not now, with how many wonderfully beautiful views they get to see on the Experience, when James, Sirius and Peter see him.
“At last! He’s alive!” James shouts, and Sirius throws his arms to the sky in a very dramatic way. Remus chuckles.
“We weren’t that long.” He rolls his eyes.
“You were.” Mary cocks an eyebrow in her very own cheeky way, “We’ve been here for about an hour.”
“What were you two up to in the forest?” Peter asks in a truly confused voice and oh, bless him for his innocent mind. Alex sputters next to him and Remus turns his head to see the guy red in the face. Such a good poker face.
Sirius whips his head up, and Remus thinks it could be funny, so he says in a very unconvincing voice, “Nothing. Mind your business.”
James looks at them with a smirk, but still with a confused look on his face. He looks at Remus and Alex for a while before he seems to come to a conclusion on his own and shrugs. Sirius on the other hand is still staring at them forcefully, with the same look he sports when Remus forces him to do his homework.
Somehow, he refrains from making a comment, but instead turns his back on them and sits back where he was, Remus supposes, when they arrived. The group stays there for an hour, some playing board games while others, like Remus and Lily, take pictures of the waterfalls and the sunset. Once the sun has set, around eight at night, some buses arrive, and they find their way back at the hotel much quicker than they did to come.
Once settled in their room at a very traditional looking hotel, Sirius is sitting on the bed while Remus is sorting out his clothes for the next day out of his suitcase, and he’s staring at Remus with his brows furrowed. At last, he finally talks.
“What happened in the forest? You did take an awful lot of time with that guy.” He says like the thought of him disgusts him.
“Alex.” Remus corrects, still looking at his suitcase, “And nothing happened. I just have the body of an eighty-year-old.”
He hears Sirius scoff, “Whatever his name is.” Remus is certain that this statement is followed by an eye roll, “You’re sure nothing happened? Cause you know, like, I won’t judge. I’m fine with you being into blokes, like it’s fine. Just. I don’t care. You can tell me.” He rambles on like an idiot, and Remus takes a deep breath out.
“Even if I told you, you’d just accuse me of being a prude.”
Sirius splutters, apparently a bit shocked, “So something did happen?” he asks, eyes wide and a bit manic. Remus stares at him, a bit at loss for his behaviour and sighs. What the hell is wrong with Sirius?
“What if it did?” he asks, because he doesn’t understand why Sirius looks this invested. He gets that best friends tell each other about people they shag and stuff, but this is too much, even by Sirius’ standards.
At Remus’ words, Sirius falls silent. He opens his mouth a few times, closes it and in the end, ends up saying, “Nothing. It’s fine, I just told you.” With a small voice and a tiny shrug.
Remus stares at him, not understanding his behaviour at all, until he just decides to give up. If he wants to act all weird, then it’s on him, and it’s not Remus’ job to make himself crazy over why Sirius said this, and why he looked that way and what if, what if, what if. He knows he will overthink it, probably on the bus the next day but he doesn’t want to. So, Remus just shrugs, mutters “Whatever you say” under his breath and gets in the bathroom to brush his teeth. When he comes back, Sirius is already in bed, his back to Remus. He slips in after him, turns his back on him too, and he knows that Sirius isn’t sleeping, but he doesn’t call him out on it. If Sirius wants to act all weird, then that’s his problem.
The next night, on their last night in Korea, Remus catches Sirius making out with the waitress of the restaurant against the wall of an alley.