Forget Me Not

Chapter One

Maxine Nightingale – Right Back Where We Started From
Korn and Mew theme song

[Author's note: This is where it all began. With a chance encounter and all the memories it brought back to life. Do You Remember live link here...]

Korn woke up and looked at the person beside him on the bed. This was a first. He'd never brought anyone home. Not to this house at least...and not for just sex.

All his previous encounters had been in bars and cars and when he got lucky, a hotel room. He didn't want it to mean anything. Korn already knew the score. But it was hard to ignore the face of the man sleeping next to him—again!

Mew's eyes opened and looked straight at him. He was the only person Korn knew who could go from sleeping soundly to wide awake with nothing in between. Then he smiled. It was such an open look that for a moment it took Korn's breath away.

Then like a blow to the chest, he was catapulted back in time to the very first time Mew ever looked at him like that...when they had lain on his narrow bed in Mew's house after the first time, they had spent the entire night in bed together. Mew's birthday. The only birthday they had celebrated together.

"Good morning," Mew said jolting Korn back to the present.

"Good morning."

Korn could remember the first time those many years ago...the memory altered by time. But the way it felt wasn't like it felt now. This time had been slower. More intense. This time they knew what they were doing.

Or did they?

~

Mew hadn't expected to reconnect with Korn. Then again, calling it a reconnection seemed a little optimistic. It had become very obvious very quickly that Korn wasn't interested in rekindling what they had growing up. He was interested in the sex. Nothing else. It should have been a one-night stand – for old time's sake.

But it kept happening.

If Mew wasn't wrong, he was in Korn's bed. That was a first. From the look on Korn's face, it was more than that. He didn't dare ask what. Some things were better off left unspoken.

The night before had started like that. Unspoken. Mew was in town for work, as usual. He'd finished his rounds and wasn't up for looking for a new place to get a quick meal and beer to wind down. He liked the bar near his hotel because they served the best barbecue wings. It was different from his normal fair. Offering a sense of adventure that was sorely missing from the rest of his life. It was also where he'd bumped into Korn nine months before.

He'd just finished his first beer and the generous portion of wings when Korn walked in—almost like they had planned it. There were other people with him but the moment he noticed Mew, he left them and joined him at the bar. He didn't say anything. Just sat.

Mew asked for his bill and once it was paid Korn stood up and walked out. It was up to Mew to follow. He took his time. Putting on his jacket and pocketing his wallet, before making his way outside.

"You ride?" Korn asked as he handed Mew a helmet and indicated the motorbike he was using.

"Never on my own but yeah...I can ride."

Korn climbed on the bike and gunned the engine. He waited until Mew climbed on behind him and rode off. He never said where they were going. He never asked what Mew wanted to do. He didn't even tell him when they arrived. He just parked his bike and dismounted. Confident that Mew would follow.

Mew hated himself for going along with Korn's arrogant behaviour. All that changed when they got to a room on the third floor of the modern-looking apartment building. Korn opened it with a key on the same holder as the bike fob and let Mew in before him. He closed and locked the door behind them with a resounding click.