My roommate seduced me without saying a word

“Welcome to your new home,” Rubén said as we climbed the stairs and reached the landing. “The others are waiting for you.”

Daniel could barely manage the backpack on his shoulder and the two suitcases in his hands. The trip from Almería had been endless, with two transfers and an endless wait at an intermediate station. The career offer in Granada had dragged him to this fourth-floor walk-up in the very center of the city, and the mere idea of throwing himself onto what would be his bed for the whole academic year seemed like a promise of paradise. He had spoken to Rubén several times on the phone to sort out the rent, the bills, and the rest of the details of the shared apartment.

“We’re all nice here,” Rubén added. “You’re going to like them.”

It was his first time living with strangers, and he only hoped he wouldn’t run into any drama. The hallway opened onto a narrow living room, with a sunken sofa and a low table covered in magazines. A girl and a guy were waiting there for him.

“Hi, I’m Carla,” she introduced herself, offering him her hand. “Nice to meet you. And this is Jihoon.”

Daniel was immediately surprised that there was only one girl among three guys. Rubén had already told him over the phone that she didn’t mind and that everyone’s space in the apartment was respected. Carla moved with the ease of someone who was in charge without making a show of it. As for Jihoon, what caught his attention were the Korean features, the black hair gathered into a tuft on his forehead, and the thick-rimmed glasses that covered half his face. Jihoon made a series of quick gestures with his hands, and Daniel frowned.

“He’s welcoming you,” Carla translated.

“Is he deaf?”

“Mute. I’m the only one here who can interpret for him. This lazy bastard,” she added, pointing at Rubén with her thumb, “is too lazy to learn sign language.”

“I have a very busy life,” he defended himself.

“Yeah, right.”

Daniel burst out laughing. He liked the vibe. Jihoon also seemed to laugh in his own way: he winked at him from behind his glasses.

“If he ever has anything important to tell you, I’ll translate it for you,” Carla promised. “But he doesn’t talk much anyway, irony of ironies.”

“Got it.”

“Come on, I’ll show you your room,” Rubén cut in.

***

The first impression had been excellent, and Daniel settled in with surprising speed. By the second week he had the shower schedule down, he knew which drawer in the fridge was his, and he had memorized which corner café sold the coffee Carla liked. Only two things kept getting under his skin. The first was the kitchen, a tiny space that turned into a game of Tetris whenever two people tried to cook at the same time. The second was Jihoon.

When Carla was home, the Korean barely noticed him. Daniel would cross paths with his gaze in the hallway and at most get a distant, almost formal nod. But in the afternoons, when Carla went off to the bar where she worked or stayed at the library, Jihoon changed. He would approach him in the hallway, shower him with a sequence of quick gestures, and then just carry on down the hall with a lopsided smile.

“I don’t understand you,” Daniel would repeat, frustrated.

But the guy wouldn’t insist. The next day, Daniel would try to reproduce the signs in front of Carla, so clumsily it was pure gibberish.

“I don’t know, it seems like he wants to tell you something, but what you’re doing is awful pantomime. I’ll ask him tonight.”

And the answer was always the same:

“He says yes, that he tried to communicate with you, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was about.”

“He’s messing with you,” Rubén chimed in one day. “He does it to me too. He thinks it’s funny that we don’t know sign language. He’s harmless.”

“But I’m not laughing at him.”

“Relax, that’s not why. If it were something important, he’d have said so by now. The good thing about being mute,” Carla remarked, amused, “is that he keeps secrets like nobody else.”

***

On the Friday of the fourth week, Daniel got home after eleven. Carla was covering the closing shift at her bar. Rubén had gone out for drinks with some classmates and wasn’t expected back until dawn. He assumed Jihoon would be in his room.

He went in quietly and headed into his room. He liked to sleep naked, so he stripped completely and only put on a pair of sweatpants, with nothing underneath, to go to the bathroom. It felt liberating to feel his skin free again after a day in jeans and shoes. His roommates had never said anything about it, and he doubted they had even noticed.

He was just finishing rinsing his mouth when three knocks sounded at the door. House rules were to knock before going in, because the lock had been broken since before he arrived and the landlord still hadn’t sent anyone. Daniel spat and answered:

“Occupied, I’ll be out in a minute.”

The door opened anyway. Jihoon came in, shut it behind him, and stood in the middle of the small bathroom. He was wearing only slippers and pajama pants. His torso, slender and very pale, contrasted with the blackness of his hair, his glasses, and his eyes. Daniel looked at him, not knowing what to do.

“What do you want?”

Jihoon pointed to himself, made a gesture as if pinching his throat, and then pointed at Daniel with his index finger. He repeated the sequence.

“I still don’t understand you. Carla isn’t here.”

The Korean looked annoyed. He took a step forward and, without further warning, kissed him on the mouth. Daniel froze, with the cool wetness of that чужая saliva on his lips. Jihoon repeated the throat gesture and pointed at him again. This time Daniel focused on the other man’s lips, which seemed to be shaping a sentence.

“Do I… do I turn you on?”

Jihoon nodded.

“Really?”

Another affirmative nod. And then he pressed himself against him, chest to chest, and stole a second kiss.

Daniel found the situation absurd and arousing in equal measure. His cock began to swell as their hairless bodies brushed against each other. Without underwear holding it down, the bulge under his sweatpants was impossible to hide. Jihoon noticed it immediately. He lowered his hand and felt the fabric like someone estimating the weight of something new.

“Do you want to see it?”

He nodded.

Daniel pulled his pants down. The other man’s eyes widened behind the glasses; he stepped back and covered his face with his free hand.

“If it scares you, we can stop,” he offered, trying to sound like he was joking.

He made a move to pull his sweatpants back up. Jihoon shook his head so emphatically his glasses slipped, and a cold hand wrapped around his erection before the pants even reached his knees. The Korean’s temperature was completely different from his, and that contrast made his skin prickle all the way up to his shoulders.

Jihoon, more determined than he looked, got rid of the pajamas in one motion. He had a very slender, almost adolescent body, with a medium-sized cock rising at a sharp angle, emerging from a patch of black hair that stood out against his almost translucent skin. Without wasting time, he knelt on the tiles and took Daniel’s erection into his mouth.

A groan escaped Daniel. This couldn’t be the same Jihoon from the hallways, the one who didn’t even give him a gesture when there were witnesses. His tongue moved with a skill that didn’t fit his daytime silence: he played with the head as if it were a piece of candy, sucked just enough, alternated rhythms. Then he learned an even more devastating trick: he drove his head one way and his hand the other. A slow twist that threatened to empty him in a matter of seconds.

“Stop,” Daniel panted. “Stop, I’m going to come.”

Jihoon obeyed at once and went back to an innocent sucking. He looked up at him from below, his gaze bright and mocking behind the glasses. Daniel wondered how many others had gone through that treatment before him.

“Where did you learn that?”

The Korean only smiled. Carla was right. Mute people keep the best secrets.

***

Jihoon stood up and, without letting go of his cock, tugged gently on him as if he were an improvised leash. Daniel understood. They opened the bathroom door and crossed the dark hallway in silence until they reached Daniel’s room. He closed the door behind them. Jihoon was already positioning himself against the bed, offering his ass, trying to guide himself on his own.

“Wait,” Daniel murmured. “Let me.”

He hadn’t brought anyone back to the flat yet, but just in case he kept the lube in the top drawer of the nightstand. He coated himself well, lubed the other man carefully, and asked him to lean forward. Jihoon couldn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. He let out a long breath when Daniel started to push in and wrapped his arms around him without separating his hips. He was small, much tighter than expected. Daniel moved slowly, measuring each centimeter, until the other man’s body truly gave way.

In the absence of words, Jihoon purred. He bit his lower lip, searched for his tongue between thrusts, ran his hands over his back. A slow paso doble between hips and kisses, in a room lit only by the yellowish glow from the inner courtyard.

That tiny torso couldn’t stay upright for long. Jihoon slowly melted and ended up falling forward. He braced his hands on the mattress, feet still on the floor, chest and forehead against the sheets. Daniel took advantage of the new position to drive deeper. With every movement, the Korean’s chest gave off a vibration that never became sound and yet electrified him more than any conventional moan.

“Already giving up?” he asked, smiling.

Jihoon, in answer, pushed his ass up. He wasn’t giving up; he was making himself hard to get. Daniel climbed onto the bed, set his knees on either side of that almost childlike, skinny body, and fucked him harder and deeper. Jihoon’s head lifted from the mattress, his mouth opening wide, while no sound came out. That image, a perfectly articulated silent scream, was what finally broke Daniel’s restraint.

He pulled out in time, leaned back against the pillow, and used his hand to finish the last stretch. Jihoon climbed up beside him, even though the bed wasn’t made for two. He took care of himself with quick fingers and came too. Daniel, with more built-up force, came all over his own chest, and a treacherous drop landed on the left lens of the Korean’s glasses.

“Sorry,” he panted, trying not to laugh.

Jihoon smiled. He took off his glasses, licked the lens with the tip of his tongue as if it were whipped cream, and set them on the nightstand.

***

Daniel woke the next morning with the courtyard light coming in through the poorly lowered blind. Jihoon was still there, asleep on his chest, breathing softly. They must have passed out at some point. The sheets covered them halfway, their clothes were scattered across the bathroom floor and the hallway, and movement was starting to be heard on the other side of the door.

“Rubén!” Carla was calling. “Do you know where Jihoon is?”

“Isn’t he in his room?”

“I just looked. That’s really strange.”

“And in the bathroom?”

Pause. Footsteps.

“No one’s here. And whose clothes are these on the floor?”

“Ask Daniel. He got home late yesterday.”

Daniel didn’t move. It would have been useless to try to hide anything with his roommate asleep on top of him. Besides, he didn’t want to wake him. He looked absurdly calm, almost innocent, with his glasses still on the nightstand. Carla knocked softly on his door and, without waiting for an answer, peeked her head through the gap. She saw the scene, her eyes widened for a split second, and then a grin spread from ear to ear. Daniel put a finger to his lips and mouthed, silently, “I’ll tell you later.”

Carla let out an amused snort, nodded, and closed the door gently. Daniel closed his eyes and settled more comfortably against the Korean. For once, we don’t need words.