Grey Zone; baekyeol
Title: Grey Zone
Rating: pg
Pairing: still-trying-so-hard-to-be-a-thing!baekyeol
Wordcount: 2k~
Warning: Chanyeol drinks sadly all by himself to forget his epic fail love life
Disclaimer: EXO belongs to themselves and SME
Summary: idol&bodyguard!au. A few weeks after Singapore, Chanyeol has left his job and he's now holed up in his flat, unable to face his feelings for Baekhyun. The, suddenly, Baekhyun confesses he's been dumped on national television, Kyungsoo kidnaps innocent people and Chanyeol regrets every drop of alcohol he's drunk yesterday night.
A/N: fourth part of my bodyguard!au. Set a few weeks after Singapore and the kiss.
-If you haven't read the other parts it could be extremely difficult to understand what is going on.
-This is for kei17 and squish-nyein and for everyone else who waited for an update. I'm only sorry that it had to be this update and not the next one, because the following installment will be the HUGE MAIN SCENE, probably the last one in this au (unless I decide to write some missing moments.)
<< Hide and Seek
The apartment is new, large, expensive, like something out of a real estate luxury catalogue. It's also incredibly messy, with clothes and empty food packets scattered all over the floor and the large glass table. The contrast between the hard, minimalist, artistic lines of the interior and its state of utter abandon is unwelcome to the eyes, almost tacky.
Lost in the sea of trash and empty suju bottles that has taken over the living room, a cell phone starts to ring, dull and imperative, while its owner grunts and proceeds to ignore it, just like he's done for the past few weeks. It’s only Yifan - the Angry Birds notification gives him away so easily - probably worried that Chanyeol has finally died in his own stupidity.
He keeps sleeping and nurturing his own headache, trying to fight fire with fire and get over the hangover with more alcohol. Useless to say, it's not helping.
Only the television, one of those giant, flat movie theatre displays, stands proud and loud, disturbing the empty somnolence of the house with its loud buzz. And it's the television that, in the end, breaks the calm.
"Recently there have been rumours of a relationship between you and female actress Kim Yunju, but your agency has denied everything." the female host asks, curious and jealous like only a woman working in the entertainment world can be. "I confirm what my agent said. Yunju-ssi is a dear colleague and, I hope, a friend, but our relationship hasn't moved further."
Chanyeol falls from the couch face down in the carpet. He almost steps on an empty pizza box in his haste to get up again and turn the volume up.
"The fans have noticed you look very sullen and they're worried about your health."
A laugh, a beautiful, pretty, angelic laugh. Chanyeol is so hangover and confused that he’s not even ashamed to admit to himself that he missed that laugh so badly it was alright for him to go and get drunk, which he hadn't done in forever, the last time maybe in college.
Well, goodbye denial and welcome acceptation of doom. Baekhyun laughs and shrugs and Chanyeol possibly swoons and tries to coo and swear at the same time, the attempt ending in a grotesque choked sound. Maybe dumping the job was not an overall bad decision after all. Now he can dedicate himself to the creation of a Byun Baekhyun fansite. Then dumping his job also means not being able to see Baekhyun again and he groans, already looking for the nearest can of beer. It’s better to drink and forget.
“Actually,” Baekhyun keeps talking, snapping Chanyeol out of his reverie - and really, it’s pathetic to see how quickly he react to the sound of his voice, like a trained dog, “something has been bothering me.”
The host’s gossip radar explodes, and she inches near, speaking to Baekhyun’s voice in a confidential tone that slightly annoys Chanyeol. “Tell us, are the rumour true? There is, indeed, a girl?”
She lowers her voice, inviting Baekhyun to open up, as if there isn’t a whole studio and cameras and a public there to hear Baekhyun’s confessions.
“Ah, I wish. I have to confess that recently… I’ve been dumped.”
The host gasps, the cameraman gasps, the entire studio gasps, Chanyeol gasps too before he remembers that it shouldn’t be a news to him since he’s the one who dumped Baekhyun in the first place. Can it still be called dumping if they weren’t going out in the first place?
“I know it’s difficult to believe, but yes, there was this person… It looked like, I don’t know. It got my hopes up. They were really nice. But in the end, I got dumped pretty bad.”
He looks quite defeated and cute, and Chanyeol has to physically restrain himself from running all the way to the television studies, kneel in front of Baekhyun and beg for forgiveness. It’s a pretty stupid idea, considering that this interview was probably pre-recorded two days ago - yes, he still has Baekhyun’s schedule imprinted in his mind. Maybe it’s time to stop drinking. He doesn’t like the stupid way his brain thinks when he’s this inebriated. The last time he got spectacularly drunk was at graduation party, years ago, and if he remembers well the night had ended with him fucking a freshman on Yifan’s couch.
“It’s difficult to believe that someone would dump you, though,” insists the host, and Baekhyun does the thing, the Byun Baekhyun thing. The thing that - Chanyeol knows perfectly well - is a ruse, a trick to gain the audience’s support and gets Baekhyun out of tricky questions unscathed. He lowers his eyes, bites his lips. There’s only the tiniest veil of blush on his cheeks. The hearts of the toughest ahjummas start to crack. Chanyeol’s own soul is holding up by pure sheer willpower. His lower lip trembles a bit in front of the main camera and his eyes get a little shiny, the last effect. A masterpiece. Probably every single one of the girls in his fancafe would now give an arm to make him happy.
The MC almost forgets she’s supposed to be funny and charming - she’s a former comedian after all - and swoons a little, before putting herself together and cracking a joke about how disappointed would be Baekhyun’s fans to know that someone dared to refuse their oppa while they’d do anything to have his attention.
Chanyeol knows what comes afterwards. Baekhyun is supposed to assure his fanbase that he’s over the crush and ready to dedicate himself only to them, and then the program will move on, there are game segments to complete and other guests to interview. Baekhyun’s mysterious girl will be the talk of the day for a few days, some idols and actresses will be served to the hungry tabloid wolves and some angry fan will promise revenge. He frowns, silently hoping that Baekhyun’s new bodyguard is a capable one.
What Chanyeol, nor anyone else, was expecting, was Baekhyun looking right into the camera, his eyes digging holes in Chanyeol’s soul. “I know that everyone expects me to get over this like a man, but I can’t get closure if the other person keeps running away. If you’re looking at this, please be aware, I want an explanation. And if you don’t give it to me willingly I’ll have to come and get it myself.” He pauses, dramatically, while everyone in the studio hold their breath. “Or this is what I’d say if something like that really happened to me.”
He concludes with a devilish smirk, so out of place after the earlier teary eyed scene, and a kiss sign to the camera that makes the audience go wild. Even the host gets up and starts clapping, “Omo, Baekhyunnie, I thought that you were being serious. Aish, this was just Byun Baekhyun showing his sexy side, we were all deceived.”
Everyone laughs, the fans sigh in relief, all at the same time. The show goes on, and Chanyeol looks at the hole on his knobbly night sock, wondering what he’s just witnessed. The annoying, piercing cheep of Yifan’s Angry Birds ringtone keeps distracting him from some very important detail lingering at the corner of his conscience, just shy of reach. If only he wasn’t so hungover, if only Baekhyun wasn’t so confusing and contradictory. Chanyeol could recognise his stage smirk everywhere, but the little scene that had happened before? Was it scripted, was it the spur of the moment? Was it a message for him? And then, unexpectedly, all the pieces fall back into place, pushed by gravity in that hammered cave that is Chanyeol’s still vaguely inebriated mind. Baekhyun had said that he wanted an explanation, and that he was ready to come and get it by himself, but it’s impossible. Chanyeol has changed his phone number and Baekhyun doesn’t know his address. Hell, not even Kyungsoo knows his address. The only person who could tell them, the only link they have to Chanyeol’s location is…
Chanyeol’s phone chirps again, the ominous Angry Bird notification even more ominous in the light of the last stunning revelations. Chanyeol trips on his own feet from a sitting position - which should be impossible theoretically, but nothing it’s impossible when you’re drunk - in his haste to reach the smartphone.
He flips it open with trembling hands, hoping desperately in the back of his heart that it’s only Yifan, checking if he’s still alive, complaining about Yixing wanting to adopt a baby kangaroo or just shouting some incomprehensible drunk Chinese slurring at him. Of course, Yifan is not the one who answers.
“I was wondering when you were finally going to pick it up,” mewls a dark, smug voice.
“Where’s my friend? What did you do to him?” he asks, and Do Kyungsoo chuckles on the other side of the line. Chanyeol can only hope his best friend is not lying in a bloody pool on the floor just because Chanyeol decided to mess up with the best friend of a manager slash mob boss slash psycho killer.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about him. He’s here with me, and he’s okay. His husband though… Who knows where he is right now,” he leers, and before Chanyeol can protest, shout, demand that they let his friends go, immediately, it’s only him they want after all, Fan and Xing have nothing to do with this, the phone is violently torn out of Kyungsoo’s hold. He slumps on the couch in relief when he hears Yifan’s exasperated voice.
“Oh, please, you sound like a trash mafia movie. I bet he’s drunk if he’s buying your shit- Hey Chanyeol, man, sorry for the cheap show. Are you hungover?”
“Not enough,” he exhales, “are you really alright?”
Yifan's laugh, warm and rich, covers the static noise coming out of the receiver.
“Do you really think that Do Kyungsoo could overpower me, me, in my own house and kidnap Xing? How much did you drink? He’s a short, hysteric, coffee addicted manager, not a private assassin. He wouldn’t hurt a dying fly- ouch! What was that for?”
Chanyeol vaguely hears something that sound like “Don’t blow up my cover, you asshole, he was so nicely afraid of me,” but that could also be the effect of the last residues of alcohol in his system. The situayion is surreal.
“What about Yixing?”
Yifan’s voice turns serious again. “He’s out, obviously, with Baekhyun.”
Oh, Baekhyun. Wait, why would Yixing be out with Baekhyun? That doesn’t make any sense.
“You fucked up, Yeol, and for good, this time. I mean, I was on your side all the time, but Baekhyun can be pretty convincing when he sets his mind to be. And Yixing kind of sided with him and…”
“Wait a moment, slow down,” an ill-omened sense of dread settles down in Chanyeol’s gut. “Where are they now?”
Yifan doesn’t answer, but a mess of faint voices suggests that he’s probably bickering with Kyungsoo. Chanyeol drops the phone, hearing the familiar sound of Yixing’s motorbike rumbling outside his window.
Oh no, oh no he’s not ready. He hasn’t showered in three days, his flat is a mess, his stubble could get a flat tyre, he can’t do this now.
The doorbell echoes in the house, once, twice, thrice, someone ringing it with the impatience of a little kid, or a man looking for some answers.
Chanyeol is not ready, but it’s Byun Baekhyun standing out of his door. Byun Baekhyun and a thousand of frightening possibilities. Byun Baekhyun and his soft, warm smiles, his powdered button nose, his Supreme comfy hoodie and his carefully styled, glossy caramel hair. The little camera whore looks up, where the security device is filming him, and gives Chanyeol a two fingers salute, urging him to open the door with impatient eyes. A single complaint call to the concierge and Chanyeol could bury himself in his empty apartment again, drowning in hazy images of pale skin uncovered by the hem of a too risqué shirt, of pink lips stained with red gloss and parted, open, like an inviting fruit waiting to be bitten. And maybe the cheap soju was only a temporary relief, the quickest way to distract himself from Singapore, a bare hospital room and the sweet temptation of Baekhyun’s red cheeks, an invitation that Chanyeol wanted, tried to, and in the end couldn’t, resist. He’s still trapped there, on an uncomfortable white plastic chair, looking at Baekhyun’s face and wondering if this wicked, spoiled, adorable boy is worth his job and his emotional stability, regretting the day their paths crossed and he fell into Baekhyun’s trap.
What do I do? he thinks, because even if he’s running away since that day, he hasn’t really gone anywhere. Baekhyun in the end has managed to catch up with him and now he’s waiting, on the other side of the wall, scary and mysterious and full of sweet, devious promises.
He takes a deep breath and opens the door.
SORRY NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS PLEASE DON'T HATE ME BYE /runs away and hides in alaska for the next three years/ what did i just write
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Rating: pg
Pairing: still-trying-so-hard-to-be-a-thing!baekyeol
Wordcount: 2k~
Warning: Chanyeol drinks sadly all by himself to forget his epic fail love life
Disclaimer: EXO belongs to themselves and SME
Summary: idol&bodyguard!au. A few weeks after Singapore, Chanyeol has left his job and he's now holed up in his flat, unable to face his feelings for Baekhyun. The, suddenly, Baekhyun confesses he's been dumped on national television, Kyungsoo kidnaps innocent people and Chanyeol regrets every drop of alcohol he's drunk yesterday night.
A/N: fourth part of my bodyguard!au. Set a few weeks after Singapore and the kiss.
-If you haven't read the other parts it could be extremely difficult to understand what is going on.
-This is for kei17 and squish-nyein and for everyone else who waited for an update. I'm only sorry that it had to be this update and not the next one, because the following installment will be the HUGE MAIN SCENE, probably the last one in this au (unless I decide to write some missing moments.)
<< Hide and Seek
The apartment is new, large, expensive, like something out of a real estate luxury catalogue. It's also incredibly messy, with clothes and empty food packets scattered all over the floor and the large glass table. The contrast between the hard, minimalist, artistic lines of the interior and its state of utter abandon is unwelcome to the eyes, almost tacky.
Lost in the sea of trash and empty suju bottles that has taken over the living room, a cell phone starts to ring, dull and imperative, while its owner grunts and proceeds to ignore it, just like he's done for the past few weeks. It’s only Yifan - the Angry Birds notification gives him away so easily - probably worried that Chanyeol has finally died in his own stupidity.
He keeps sleeping and nurturing his own headache, trying to fight fire with fire and get over the hangover with more alcohol. Useless to say, it's not helping.
Only the television, one of those giant, flat movie theatre displays, stands proud and loud, disturbing the empty somnolence of the house with its loud buzz. And it's the television that, in the end, breaks the calm.
"Recently there have been rumours of a relationship between you and female actress Kim Yunju, but your agency has denied everything." the female host asks, curious and jealous like only a woman working in the entertainment world can be. "I confirm what my agent said. Yunju-ssi is a dear colleague and, I hope, a friend, but our relationship hasn't moved further."
Chanyeol falls from the couch face down in the carpet. He almost steps on an empty pizza box in his haste to get up again and turn the volume up.
"The fans have noticed you look very sullen and they're worried about your health."
A laugh, a beautiful, pretty, angelic laugh. Chanyeol is so hangover and confused that he’s not even ashamed to admit to himself that he missed that laugh so badly it was alright for him to go and get drunk, which he hadn't done in forever, the last time maybe in college.
Well, goodbye denial and welcome acceptation of doom. Baekhyun laughs and shrugs and Chanyeol possibly swoons and tries to coo and swear at the same time, the attempt ending in a grotesque choked sound. Maybe dumping the job was not an overall bad decision after all. Now he can dedicate himself to the creation of a Byun Baekhyun fansite. Then dumping his job also means not being able to see Baekhyun again and he groans, already looking for the nearest can of beer. It’s better to drink and forget.
“Actually,” Baekhyun keeps talking, snapping Chanyeol out of his reverie - and really, it’s pathetic to see how quickly he react to the sound of his voice, like a trained dog, “something has been bothering me.”
The host’s gossip radar explodes, and she inches near, speaking to Baekhyun’s voice in a confidential tone that slightly annoys Chanyeol. “Tell us, are the rumour true? There is, indeed, a girl?”
She lowers her voice, inviting Baekhyun to open up, as if there isn’t a whole studio and cameras and a public there to hear Baekhyun’s confessions.
“Ah, I wish. I have to confess that recently… I’ve been dumped.”
The host gasps, the cameraman gasps, the entire studio gasps, Chanyeol gasps too before he remembers that it shouldn’t be a news to him since he’s the one who dumped Baekhyun in the first place. Can it still be called dumping if they weren’t going out in the first place?
“I know it’s difficult to believe, but yes, there was this person… It looked like, I don’t know. It got my hopes up. They were really nice. But in the end, I got dumped pretty bad.”
He looks quite defeated and cute, and Chanyeol has to physically restrain himself from running all the way to the television studies, kneel in front of Baekhyun and beg for forgiveness. It’s a pretty stupid idea, considering that this interview was probably pre-recorded two days ago - yes, he still has Baekhyun’s schedule imprinted in his mind. Maybe it’s time to stop drinking. He doesn’t like the stupid way his brain thinks when he’s this inebriated. The last time he got spectacularly drunk was at graduation party, years ago, and if he remembers well the night had ended with him fucking a freshman on Yifan’s couch.
“It’s difficult to believe that someone would dump you, though,” insists the host, and Baekhyun does the thing, the Byun Baekhyun thing. The thing that - Chanyeol knows perfectly well - is a ruse, a trick to gain the audience’s support and gets Baekhyun out of tricky questions unscathed. He lowers his eyes, bites his lips. There’s only the tiniest veil of blush on his cheeks. The hearts of the toughest ahjummas start to crack. Chanyeol’s own soul is holding up by pure sheer willpower. His lower lip trembles a bit in front of the main camera and his eyes get a little shiny, the last effect. A masterpiece. Probably every single one of the girls in his fancafe would now give an arm to make him happy.
The MC almost forgets she’s supposed to be funny and charming - she’s a former comedian after all - and swoons a little, before putting herself together and cracking a joke about how disappointed would be Baekhyun’s fans to know that someone dared to refuse their oppa while they’d do anything to have his attention.
Chanyeol knows what comes afterwards. Baekhyun is supposed to assure his fanbase that he’s over the crush and ready to dedicate himself only to them, and then the program will move on, there are game segments to complete and other guests to interview. Baekhyun’s mysterious girl will be the talk of the day for a few days, some idols and actresses will be served to the hungry tabloid wolves and some angry fan will promise revenge. He frowns, silently hoping that Baekhyun’s new bodyguard is a capable one.
What Chanyeol, nor anyone else, was expecting, was Baekhyun looking right into the camera, his eyes digging holes in Chanyeol’s soul. “I know that everyone expects me to get over this like a man, but I can’t get closure if the other person keeps running away. If you’re looking at this, please be aware, I want an explanation. And if you don’t give it to me willingly I’ll have to come and get it myself.” He pauses, dramatically, while everyone in the studio hold their breath. “Or this is what I’d say if something like that really happened to me.”
He concludes with a devilish smirk, so out of place after the earlier teary eyed scene, and a kiss sign to the camera that makes the audience go wild. Even the host gets up and starts clapping, “Omo, Baekhyunnie, I thought that you were being serious. Aish, this was just Byun Baekhyun showing his sexy side, we were all deceived.”
Everyone laughs, the fans sigh in relief, all at the same time. The show goes on, and Chanyeol looks at the hole on his knobbly night sock, wondering what he’s just witnessed. The annoying, piercing cheep of Yifan’s Angry Birds ringtone keeps distracting him from some very important detail lingering at the corner of his conscience, just shy of reach. If only he wasn’t so hungover, if only Baekhyun wasn’t so confusing and contradictory. Chanyeol could recognise his stage smirk everywhere, but the little scene that had happened before? Was it scripted, was it the spur of the moment? Was it a message for him? And then, unexpectedly, all the pieces fall back into place, pushed by gravity in that hammered cave that is Chanyeol’s still vaguely inebriated mind. Baekhyun had said that he wanted an explanation, and that he was ready to come and get it by himself, but it’s impossible. Chanyeol has changed his phone number and Baekhyun doesn’t know his address. Hell, not even Kyungsoo knows his address. The only person who could tell them, the only link they have to Chanyeol’s location is…
Chanyeol’s phone chirps again, the ominous Angry Bird notification even more ominous in the light of the last stunning revelations. Chanyeol trips on his own feet from a sitting position - which should be impossible theoretically, but nothing it’s impossible when you’re drunk - in his haste to reach the smartphone.
He flips it open with trembling hands, hoping desperately in the back of his heart that it’s only Yifan, checking if he’s still alive, complaining about Yixing wanting to adopt a baby kangaroo or just shouting some incomprehensible drunk Chinese slurring at him. Of course, Yifan is not the one who answers.
“I was wondering when you were finally going to pick it up,” mewls a dark, smug voice.
“Where’s my friend? What did you do to him?” he asks, and Do Kyungsoo chuckles on the other side of the line. Chanyeol can only hope his best friend is not lying in a bloody pool on the floor just because Chanyeol decided to mess up with the best friend of a manager slash mob boss slash psycho killer.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about him. He’s here with me, and he’s okay. His husband though… Who knows where he is right now,” he leers, and before Chanyeol can protest, shout, demand that they let his friends go, immediately, it’s only him they want after all, Fan and Xing have nothing to do with this, the phone is violently torn out of Kyungsoo’s hold. He slumps on the couch in relief when he hears Yifan’s exasperated voice.
“Oh, please, you sound like a trash mafia movie. I bet he’s drunk if he’s buying your shit- Hey Chanyeol, man, sorry for the cheap show. Are you hungover?”
“Not enough,” he exhales, “are you really alright?”
Yifan's laugh, warm and rich, covers the static noise coming out of the receiver.
“Do you really think that Do Kyungsoo could overpower me, me, in my own house and kidnap Xing? How much did you drink? He’s a short, hysteric, coffee addicted manager, not a private assassin. He wouldn’t hurt a dying fly- ouch! What was that for?”
Chanyeol vaguely hears something that sound like “Don’t blow up my cover, you asshole, he was so nicely afraid of me,” but that could also be the effect of the last residues of alcohol in his system. The situayion is surreal.
“What about Yixing?”
Yifan’s voice turns serious again. “He’s out, obviously, with Baekhyun.”
Oh, Baekhyun. Wait, why would Yixing be out with Baekhyun? That doesn’t make any sense.
“You fucked up, Yeol, and for good, this time. I mean, I was on your side all the time, but Baekhyun can be pretty convincing when he sets his mind to be. And Yixing kind of sided with him and…”
“Wait a moment, slow down,” an ill-omened sense of dread settles down in Chanyeol’s gut. “Where are they now?”
Yifan doesn’t answer, but a mess of faint voices suggests that he’s probably bickering with Kyungsoo. Chanyeol drops the phone, hearing the familiar sound of Yixing’s motorbike rumbling outside his window.
Oh no, oh no he’s not ready. He hasn’t showered in three days, his flat is a mess, his stubble could get a flat tyre, he can’t do this now.
The doorbell echoes in the house, once, twice, thrice, someone ringing it with the impatience of a little kid, or a man looking for some answers.
Chanyeol is not ready, but it’s Byun Baekhyun standing out of his door. Byun Baekhyun and a thousand of frightening possibilities. Byun Baekhyun and his soft, warm smiles, his powdered button nose, his Supreme comfy hoodie and his carefully styled, glossy caramel hair. The little camera whore looks up, where the security device is filming him, and gives Chanyeol a two fingers salute, urging him to open the door with impatient eyes. A single complaint call to the concierge and Chanyeol could bury himself in his empty apartment again, drowning in hazy images of pale skin uncovered by the hem of a too risqué shirt, of pink lips stained with red gloss and parted, open, like an inviting fruit waiting to be bitten. And maybe the cheap soju was only a temporary relief, the quickest way to distract himself from Singapore, a bare hospital room and the sweet temptation of Baekhyun’s red cheeks, an invitation that Chanyeol wanted, tried to, and in the end couldn’t, resist. He’s still trapped there, on an uncomfortable white plastic chair, looking at Baekhyun’s face and wondering if this wicked, spoiled, adorable boy is worth his job and his emotional stability, regretting the day their paths crossed and he fell into Baekhyun’s trap.
What do I do? he thinks, because even if he’s running away since that day, he hasn’t really gone anywhere. Baekhyun in the end has managed to catch up with him and now he’s waiting, on the other side of the wall, scary and mysterious and full of sweet, devious promises.
He takes a deep breath and opens the door.
SORRY NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS PLEASE DON'T HATE ME BYE /runs away and hides in alaska for the next three years/ what did i just write
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