back to the future ; chenyeol ; 3/3

[januarys_lovers]

Chanyeol knows he’s in trouble the second he steps into the restaurant.

It’s not the crowded room or the tables disappearing under piles of dishes, not even the loud chatter of the dozens of customers enjoying a meal or the erratic clicking of the cash register. No, it’s the single strand of hair out of his mother’s bun, the faded brown highlights - a memory of Yura’s last experiment - catching the artificial lights of the restaurant. The lipstick on her lips is faded, and her eyeliner looks sharper than usual, but then again, it might be the effect of the burning glare she sends Chanyeol. The latter feels his heart turn to lead and fall down in his chest until it smashes somewhere in his guts. Next to him, Jongdae squirms with uneasiness.

Mrs. Park politely bows down to the last customers standing in front of the cash register and smiles as they turn on their feet. They brush past Chanyeol and Jongdae, barely noticing their presence as they chat happily, as though Chanyeol and Jongdae weren’t about to get hit by a hurricane. A small hurricane with a dishevelled bun and thunderbolts in the eyes, but a hurricane nonetheless.

“So?” she asks when she reaches them, her hands on her waist. She smells like kimchi and fried rice.

“I’m sorry, mum,” Chanyeol says. “We just… We were studying and we forgot to check the time -“

His mother snorts, and Chanyeol swallows the rest of his excuse. She probably sees right through him anyway, as she always does. He’s hit by a wave of guilt, and he lowers his eyes as his blood turns to ice in his veins. She has cooked his favourite meals all summer, made sure that he always had snacks for late night studying and cast him those deep looks of concern. In return, he wastes a whole day of cramming to wander in a city he already knows with Jongdae, and shows up late at the restaurant.

He glances at Jongdae who’s still standing next to him, and the latter flashes him a sorry look. The long hours in Seoul’s suffocating heat have left a sunburn on the tip of his nose and on his cheekbones. His eyes are twinkling and his hair sticks out on his head, a result of their race to the restaurant and inevitable sweating. Chanyeol’s own shirt is glued to the clammy skin of his back. Of course she wouldn’t believe them. They don’t look half as dead as they usually do.

Chanyeol looks up, a more sincere excuse ready to spill out on the back of his tongue, but once again, his mother’s eyes stop him. They’re jumping from Chanyeol to Jongdae and Jongdae to Chanyeol with the same anger, but her lips slightly twitch and softness spreads all over her face.

“It’s my fault,” Jongdae intervenes, his tone formal and his words polite. Chanyeol casts him a look, and mentally swoons. With a smile like that, his mother has no chance to remain angry. “I’m sorry, I kept Chanyeol busy too long. We should have been more careful with the time.”

“Yes indeed,” she nods.

Chanyeol and Jongdae exchange a new look, and Chanyeol only then notices the twig tangled in Jongdae’s hair, probably left there by the branch he hit while they were running off to the restaurant a few minutes ago. Something bursts in his chest, spreading warmth in his stomach and turning into an irresistible need to laugh when it reaches his throat. He manages a light hiccup that ends in a groan and throws a heavy look at Jongdae, his eyes pointing at the twig and his heart falling into the staccato rhythm of the mirth he’s holding back. Confused, Jongdae lifts his hand, his fingers feel around his hair, raise new cowlicks as they do, and he finally catches the twig. He looks at it, lost, then chuckles when he realizes what he is holding. His chuckle ends in a squeak as he tries to muffle it before turning back to Chanyeol’s mother with a very convincing look of innocence spreading over his face.

Mrs. Park, mother of two children, wife of the most mischievous grown-up man that Chanyeol has ever seen, and quite the prankster herself, doesn’t get fooled, of course. But she smiles, and the dishevelled lock of hair doesn’t matter that much now.

“Take the register Chanyeol,” she orders. “And you two will close the restaurant tonight.”

She concludes her announcement with a glare that would have been scary if not for the wrinkles mapping the corners of her eyes, and turns around. Closing the restaurant means cleaning the kitchen, the room and leaving long after the moon has raised high above the city, but Chanyeol can’t say it wasn’t deserved. He glances at Jongdae, but the latter is already watching him with a wide smile, the twig still in his head.

“I’m sorry,” Jongdae says. He doesn’t look sorry at all. His words sound stiff, coarse, and the laugh he’s holding back is so obvious in the sharpness of his syllables.

“No you’re not,” Chanyeol chuckles.

“Well, it was a good day,” Jongdae shrugs.

He glances at the twig in his hand, and Chanyeol’s ears are reminded of the loud peal of laughter Jongdae let out when the branch got stuck in his hair. He cannot stop smiling.

“Listen, you can go home if you want,” he says. “You have no obligation to help here, you’re not even paid. I don’t mind.”

“Yes you do,” Jongdae singsongs.

He puts the twig behind Chanyeol’s ear, and his intrusion in Chanyeol’s private space has Chanyeol’s mind rushing to pick up every detail he can catch. Jongdae tiptoeing to reach his ear, the upward curl of his lips, the slight freckles sprinkled over his cheekbones by the sun, the faint smell of sap sticking to his hair, his lashes flickering and the darkness of his eyes when they land on Chanyeol’s lips. His heart misses a beat. Jongdae looks up, blinks, smiles, and pulls away. The smell of sap lingers a few more seconds, and Chanyeol breathes it all in.

“It’ll be fun, you’ll see,” Jongdae says. “If I leave, it’ll just be sad. Come on.”

He grabs Chanyeol’s arm and drags him to the cash register. His fingers slide down his arm until they close around Chanyeol’s wrist. Chanyeol knows the trick now: he wraps his own fingers around Jongdae’s wrist.

The evening flashes by faster than usual, although everything happens like it always did. Smiles, bows, greetings. Numbers, clicking of changes, ruffling of banknotes. Jongdae is sitting behind him, his stool is still squeaking whenever he moves, his legs are still dangling a few inches above the floor, and his voice still takes over the few minutes of silence between each customer. And yet, Chanyeol’s heart is erratic and fast, his breathing is irregular and sharp, because tonight feels so different. There are numbers, yes, but they don’t come from Jongdae or Chanyeol’s mouths like challenges for each other, there are no English words, no capitals and empire dates. Jongdae holds no newspaper, the red pen is forgotten next to Chanyeol’s cash register, and Jongdae doesn’t only take over the silence, he also takes over the space between him and Chanyeol. The room is noisy, crowded, the smells as heavy and overwhelming as they’ve always been, but Chanyeol barely hears, barely smells whenever Jongdae’s fingers brush against him.

Happy chatters turn into low private conversations. Busy tables get lonely, and Chanyeol’s cash register fills up. It’s the typical dull Monday shift, endless and peaceful, but tonight Chanyeol has a bunch of keys clicking in his pocket. He has the image of his mother walking out of the restaurant before him filling his mind, the glare of the kitchen’s now stainless tiles catching his eyes, and the touch of the old broom between his fingers. And he has Jongdae’s face and Jongdae’s laugh painted over everything.

“I’m almost there!” Jongdae squeaks with excitement as he enthusiastically flicks his wrist to attack the sticky spot under the closest table with his mop.

Chanyeol turns around, his broom gathering dust, crumbs and more pieces of tteokbokki than what he would have expected. Behind Jongdae, the rest of the room glistens, the floor wet and smelling like citrus. The only dirty spots are now at Chanyeol’s feet in the form a little mountain of trash, and in the slight smear of grease on Jongdae’s left cheekbone. Chanyeol hastily sweeps the dirt into the dustpan while Jongdae closes in on him. His mop hits Chanyeol’s feet just as the latter raises the broom over his head.

“Done!” he exclaims.

Jongdae scrunches up his nose in disappointment. He takes a closer look around Chanyeol and glares at the latter.

“It’s a tie. I had reached you,” he protests.

“Nope. I was done. I am done,” Chanyeol grins. “Now stop sulking, admit your defeat and keep moping.”

Jongdae snorts and stabs the floor with his mop, resulting in Chanyeol’s ankles getting splashed by a wave of citrus floor cleaner. He groans and immediately sits on the closest bench while Jongdae finishes cleaning the floor.

“Climb on the table to finish,” Chanyeol says.

Jongdae nods and get on the bench across from Chanyeol’s table. He gets on his knees, careful not to put his shoes on the bench and mops the last piece of floor just next to their table. Chanyeol is hit by a new wave of citrus smell when the mop brushes past him. Fearing another tidal wave wetting his socks, he grabs the mop’s stick and takes it away from Jongdae’s hand.

“Hey!” Jongdae whines.

“You’re done,” Chanyeol replies as he drops the mop behind his back.

It hits the floor with a loud noise that the empty restaurant turns into a buzzing echo. It looks eerie without the customers or at least his mother scurrying in and out of the kitchen, and the thick darkness pressing its face against the glass doors doesn’t help. Now that they run out of games and challenges, out of things to do, silence settles in the room around them, and with it comes that hint of tension that has been tugging at Chanyeol’s guts the whole evening.

He looks back at Jongdae only to find the latter almost lying across the table, his back a perfect curve. His cheek is pressed against the wooden surface, his arms spread on the table, and his eyes are rolling up towards Chanyeol as the half of his mouth that Chanyeol can see stretches up.

“It’s comfy,” Jongdae says in the softest, gentlest voice Chanyeol has ever heard.

His chuckle somehow doesn’t make it past his throat, and his heart speeds up when he leans over the table. The surface is cold against his cheek, but not as hard as he expected. He keeps his arms by his side and turns his face towards Jongdae’s, his eyes at the same level as Jongdae’s lips. They exchange a look, and Jongdae flashes him his brightest smile.

“What do you think?”

“It feels nice,” Chanyeol agrees. “It’s cold.”

Jongdae gives a short nod, his lips pressing into a thin line. The sunburn on his cheeks has turned to a darker red during the intense cleaning, and Chanyeol is now so close that he can see the pinkish edges merging in with Jongdae’s golden complexion. His eye bags are gone, smoothened out by the amount of sun his face has sucked in during the day, and his eyes still have this weird glistening glare that only comes from overexposure.

Breathing gets harder for Chanyeol, but he knows the edge of the table digging in his chest isn’t to blame. It’s Jongdae. He’s so beautiful, in the rawest, simplest way Chanyeol has ever witnessed. It’s in the sharp edges of his cheekbones, the softness of his cheeks. Even his straight eyebrows are beautiful, or the moles spreading under them, like the most tempting game of connect the dots ever. Chanyeol knows he’s not supposed to feel this way for a boy, but he feels like Jongdae is so much more than a boy, or his neighbour, or the tulips in front of his house.

Jongdae lets out a shaky breath that lands on Chanyeol’s forehead. Their eyes meet again, and breathing gets almost impossible now. Chanyeol needs oxygen, he needs to feed the hungry molecules inside his body, he needs to give them what they’re begging for. His gaze slides to Jongdae’s lips. Jongdae’s irises are imprinted on his, perfect round pupils dilating and lashes fluttering close. Chanyeol needs to breathe, now.

He squirms on the bench and leans a bit more over the table until his lips finally press against Jongdae’s. It’s a shy, light touch, but it blooms against Jongdae’s lips in a contaminating smile. Jongdae slightly tilts his head and Chanyeol kisses him again, this time bolder and more insistent. Jongdae’s fingers scratch the table behind Chanyeol’s head and finally curl into his hair. His fingertips brush against Chanyeol’s scalp and the touch sends a shiver down Chanyeol’s spine. He scoots closer to Jongdae and finally reaches up to put his palm on Jongdae’s cheek, his fingers stopping on Jongdae’s jawline. The latter slightly pulls away and looks down at Chanyeol. The pink edges of his sunburn has moved downward on his face, spreading the redness over more skin, and his lips now glisten with the same wetness than his eyes. He’s still so, so beautiful, and Chanyeol stills needs to breath so, so much.

He moves to the edge of the bench and wraps his second arm around Jongdae’s shoulder as he kisses him for the third time. His first kiss was memorable, but it’s the third kiss that changes everything. Jongdae’s lips part ever so slightly, and a soft whimper slides from his mouth into Chanyeol’s as his fingers create knots in Chanyeol’s hair. It’s probably not the best of all the kisses because Chanyeol has no experience and Jongdae doesn’t seem to know any better, but it still has goosebumps breaking all over Chanyeol’s body as a large magma settles in the pit of his stomach. They kiss like they ran to the restaurant, breathlessly and feeling free, and like they spent all those all-nighters, quiet and in another world. Jongdae’s second hand clench around Chanyeol’s shirt, and it’s wet, hot and sloppy, but Chanyeol has never felt more alive.

They break away at the same time. Jongdae licks his lips, and Chanyeol lets out a breathless gasp. Jongdae’s hand peeks under his shirt, his fingers card through his hair and stop behind his ear. Chanyeol’s thumb presses new dimples on Jongdae’s cheek, and his other hand holds more tightly onto Chanyeol’s shirt. They look into each other’s faces like they’ve always wanted to, lengthily and like there’s nothing they would rather be looking at.

Then Jongdae smiles and chuckles, his eyes turn to slits, wrinkles spread on his temples and he leans in for the fourth kiss. Chanyeol forgets all about the perfection of the third one.

It was the typical dull Monday shift, but it’s a Monday he’ll never forget.

_________________________________

Yura was always the most supportive member of the family.

It’s not that his parents disapproved of Chanyeol learning to play guitar. They didn’t. But Yura was the only one slipping in his room and requiring this or that song. Yura was the one clapping along Chanyeol’s progress, she was the one humming with him. He remembers how he had missed her that summer, how far she had felt. University had taken his sister and work had bounded her to her dorm. When she wasn’t reading and practicing for the upcoming year, she was handling a cash register similar to Chanyeol’s in Busan, the smell of coffee nesting in the crook of her neck.

Yura was gone, and Chanyeol’s guitar was gathering dust in the corner of his room.

It’s only two years later, when she visited him in his dorm to show off her very first professional badge, that she asked the question again. She wasn’t wearing pigtails anymore, but it was the same soft voice, the same excitement in her eyes. She gave him a song title that he has long forgotten, and Chanyeol took his guitar out of its prison.

He was two years into his degree, two years into his university life. It was at least three years since the last time he had played, and it didn’t need more than two chords for him to know that he wasn’t the player he used to be. It wasn’t even the stiffness in his fingers and the slight hesitation between each change of position. It was the dullness, the heavy feeling that he had nothing to give to his sister. No performance, no passionate singing, no more favourite songs. Music is about putting yourself out there, but Chanyeol had nothing to put out there anymore. He remembers crying, although he waited for Yura to leave his dorm. He still sees the long look she gave him, the softness of her embrace and the way she smiled at him, all worry and concern, before walking out.

The guitar was back in its case. Chanyeol brought it back home the following week-end, and it ended up in the corner, fated to gather dust. He sold it five years later.

Even now, Chanyeol still remembers the feeling of the taut strings cutting into his flesh. He remembers the humiliation at how flat and plain it sounded. He remembers, more than everything, finally realising that he had lost himself long ago, and was nowhere to be found. He was too late to even hope to fix it.

He didn’t even try to play the piano again, but he sold his keyboard the following month.

_________________________________

The don’t kiss again. Instead, they brush their ankles when they sit at the same table to study, they share secretive smile and hold hand on the other side of the cash register. Jongdae leans in whenever Chanyeol becomes too curious about the texture of Jongdae’s skin, when he gets too eager about the feeling of Jongdae’s palm against his own, or when his eyes linger a second too long on the collarbones flashed by too loose tank tops. Chanyeol feels like he’s running after Jongdae’s attentions and it leaves him breathless on a daily basis. He forgets the red cross on his desk calendar a couple of times, but he never forgets to look across the street when he wakes up, to check if Jongdae’s shutters are opened.

They don’t kiss again, but they share every hour of daylight, swallowing inhuman amounts of knowledge or working in Chanyeol’s mum’s restaurant or Jongdae’s dad’s grocer’s shop. The closest they get to that level of intimacy happens at night, when they step out of their respective houses and meet at the exact middle of the road separating the Park’s roses from the Kim’s tulips. It comes with the stillness and the indifference of the world around them, with the silence and the freedom which let them be the only beings alive in the whole city. They sit over the white lines, toes pointing at the horizon because it always feels better than to stare at the dead-end behind their backs, and they just breathe as loudly as they can. Always almost kissing.

Tonight is different though. Tonight Chanyeol stepped out of his house with his laptop, and Jongdae was standing up in the middle of the streets, excited and jittery. Tonight, they sit with their legs crossed and their backs turned on the dead-end but with their heads lowered and indifferent to road stretching out before them.

“Should I play it?” Chanyeol whispers.

Everything is so silent, so distant around them and they usually don’t bother muffling their voices, too eager to finally be more than ghosts, but tonight - tonight is different.

Jongdae looks up at him, smiling.

“I think you should open your laptop first,” he says, his intonations giggly and amused.

Chanyeol feels warmth spreading over his cheeks as he makes a face. He clenches his fingers on the top of his laptop and opens it, suddenly hoping that the dying sound it has started to make the past couple of weeks and the incessant shutting down because of overheating finally made it give up the ghost. The glow blinding them despite the streetlights on each side of the road is conclusive and finale. Chanyeol cannot run now.

He clears his throat and fumbles in his pocket for his earphones that he plugs in his laptop, a creeping sense of doom weighing down on his lungs. Jongdae’s fingers intervene, soft and much more assured than Chanyeol are, and he puts one earbud inside of Chanyeol’s right ear before slipping the other one in his own. Chanyeol looks into his face, feeling like his blood has turned to lead and his heart to steel. Jongdae’s smile is like magna melting him down.

“You can play it now,” he says. Chanyeol nods but doesn’t move. Jongdae chuckles. “Chanyeol.”

He says Chanyeol’s name as he takes the latter’s hand. His fingers stop on his pulse point for a fleeting second before they slip between Chanyeol’s. So, so close to kissing.

“Okay,” Chanyeol whispers. “Okay.”

He opens the first folder, loses a few seconds searching for the second one, although he knows perfectly well where it is. Jongdae’s smile slightly widens, but he keeps quiet, his eyes on the screen. His hand squeezes Chanyeol’s, and he finally leans in to rest his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder.

It’s two weeks of Chanyeol’s life, and it didn’t use to mean much before. Now, the numbers keep replaying in his mind as he became so good with digitals. Two weeks, fourteen days, three hundred thirty-six hours and so, so many minutes that he poured into this project instead of learning full pages by heart. It’s two weeks of his life, and so much of Jongdae, and Chanyeol cannot screw it up. His heart clenches in his chest, and he stares, frozen, at the single track in the fourth folder. It is untitled, but it doesn’t need any title to be real. It is two minutes and forty seconds long and is a bit over three Mo of data. Two weeks shrunk in this small little file.

“Chanyeol,” Jongdae whispers. “Play the song.”

Chanyeol slowly nods, but he can’t move his hand. He was excited when Jongdae came up with the idea, a playful glare in his eyes and a mischievous curl on his lips. They took Chanyeol’s guitar out of his prison, Jongdae wiped the dust away from Chanyeol’s keyboard, and they played around with Chanyeol’s recording program. It was just a few hours, not much over one hundred and eighty minutes, but Jongdae somehow turned it into two weeks when he asked Chanyeol to make a real song of their three hours of fun. He left with a look lingering on Chanyeol’s lips, a brush of his too curious fingers on the inside of Chanyeol’s arms, and two weeks of their life as an offering to Chanyeol’s talents in production. Talents that never really existed and that were, anyway, long gone.

And now he wants Chanyeol to play the song.

Jongdae lets out a low chuckle that immediately lands in Chanyeol’s ear. It’s one of those low sounds he sometimes makes when you least expect it, one that rumbles in his chest and digs burning fangs in Chanyeol’s insides. The latter lets out a groan. He looks away and shakes his head.

“I can’t,” he confesses between gritted teeth.

“It’s okay,” Jongdae says. “You’ve done all the work. I think I should be the one playing it.”

He keeps his fingers tightly intertwined with Chanyeol’s and reaches out with his free hand to slide his index finger on the pad. Chanyeol watches the cursor hovering over the untitled track as ice curls around his spine. Jongdae double-clicks.

Chanyeol shuts his eyes, wishes he could shuts himself in a hole, let the Earth swallow him whole and make Jongdae forget about him. The first notes reverberate in his ear, and knowing that the exact same echo is happening in Jongdae’s ear makes him feel smaller than he’s ever felt in his life. It’s two weeks and Jongdae’s hope packed into two minutes and forty seconds of Chanyeol’s attempts at sounding somewhat professional.

“Oh god,” he mumbles.

Jongdae doesn’t answer, doesn’t even look at him. Instead he closes his other hand around Chanyeol’s and lifts it to his face before pressing his lips against Chanyeol’s knuckles. It’s not really a kiss, because Jongdae’s lips remain there, motionless and soft, but it’s the same warmth, the same overwhelming feeling. Something stirs inside Chanyeol and he bites his lips.

The song is basic. It’s flat, electronic and far from sounding as nice as it would have been with a better equipment, but it has strong points. They all include Jongdae’s voice. Like the title, there are no words because Jongdae was just humming and singing syllable-less words, but it’s a full melody that carries the tune. It’s two weeks of Chanyeol’s life spent listening to it over and over again while trying to find the right arpeggio, to strum the right chord. It’s three hundred thirty-six hours of playing with violin and cello sounds and creating a full orchestra to match the depth of Jongdae’s voice. It’s so, so many minutes of mixing and feeling alive and real and tangible.

Chanyeol opens his eyes as they reach what he referred to as the bridge when he was working on the song, and he can’t help but smile. He glances at Jongdae, whose lips are still against his knuckles, although parted now and breathing warmth all over Chanyeol’s hand. Jongdae casts him a look when Chanyeol’s distant adlibs joins Jongdae’s hesitating high note, and Chanyeol feels his own skin crawl with embarrassment. Jongdae doesn’t let go of his eyes as the last thirty seconds unfold, as flat as the rest of the song, as electronic and unprofessional, and as centred on Jongdae’s voice.

Then silence comes back, thrumming and vibrant around them. They’re breathing so loudly.

“Chanyeol,” Jongdae croaks.

He pulls Chanyeol’s hand away, pauses and slightly frowns before pressing his lips against the back of Chanyeol’s hand again for a gentle kiss this time. Chanyeol’s heart falters in his chest.

“It’s amazing, Chanyeol,” Jongdae says. He glances at the screen and bites on his under lip. “It’s amazing,” he repeats.

Chanyeol shrugs. “It’s just… me trying, to be honest. It’s not that good, really - “

“Shut up,” Jongdae groans. He untangles their fingers and reaches out to take control of the pad a second time. The song starts over in their ears.

Chanyeol can’t help a wide smile from blooming over his lips. It starts with a simple beam but ends up in a bubbly giggle that he vainly tries to hide by lowering his head. Jongdae’s eyes are on him before it fully leaves his lips though, quickly followed by his fingers. They grab Chanyeol’s chin, their touch pressing and eager in opposition to the gentleness they’ve always conveyed whenever they brushed against Chanyeol’s skin. Then it’s Jongdae’s lips against Chanyeol’s, it’s Jongdae fully kissing Chanyeol and not just almost as two weeks of their life play in their ears.

Jongdae breaks away suddenly as the song reaches what would be the first chorus if there were lyrics, and if Chanyeol was good enough to structure a whole song. Jongdae lets out a long sigh as he blinks up at Chanyeol, his fingers still on Chanyeol’s chin.

“I love this part,” he whispers before leaning in and pressing another kiss on the corner of Chanyeol’s lips.

Chanyeol smiles faintly before pulling the earphone out of his ear. He puts it in Jongdae’s ear instead and looks down at his laptop to turn up the volume. In the silence of the night all around them, he easily catches the distant muffling of the song that now plays for Jongdae and Jongdae only. The latter watches him with wide, excited eyes, before scooting closer. Their ankles brush, they share a secretive smile and Chanyeol’s hand finds Jongdae’s again. Jongdae leans in while Chanyeol’s thumb presses hard against the inside of his wrist, and they kiss as though they had been kissing all this time, as though they had been kissing for the past two weeks.

The song plays on repeat as Jongdae slowly ends up straddling Chanyeol, it plays as Chanyeol’s hands cup Jongdae’s face, it plays when Jongdae softly sighs into their kiss, and it plays when Chanyeol wraps his arms around Jongdae’s small frame while Jongdae buries his face in the crook of his neck. It plays, and it feels even better than the road stretching out towards the horizon at their feet. It feels real.

Chanyeol steps inside his house, and he immediately catches Jongdae’s voice. It’s like it always is, light, warm and slightly singing. He sometimes drags the end of his sentences into a whinier tone, sometimes he goes higher and it blooms into chirping syllables. His lower tone is for serious talks, for whispers and frustrated groans, or, as Chanyeol is now reminded of, for polite conversations.

Intrigued, Chanyeol shoves his keys into his jean pocket and walks deeper into his house. Jongdae’s voice usually comes from the left side of the house, from the corridor that leads to Chanyeol’s room, but today it comes from the right, from the living room. He follows it until he finds its owner comfortably sitting on the couch, Chanyeol’s mum pouring freshly brewed tea in a cup, her eyes sparkling with glee. They both look up when Chanyeol walks into the room, Jongdae with a fond smile and his mum with a pleased exclamation.

“Chanyeol!” she cries out before hurrying towards him and leading him to the couch. “Jongdae came by but you weren’t home yet. I told him to wait here as you would be back soon!”

She tries to force Chanyeol to sit down, but she’s too small, too thin to even hope to have the upper hand on Chanyeol - especially on a reluctant Chanyeol. He knows how talkative his mother can be, and he doesn’t really fancy the idea of spending the next hour tied to the couch by his mum’s great tea and her incessant blabbering and questioning. Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to notice his insistence to remain on his two feet as she rushes to hand Jongdae his cup of tea. The latter thanks her with easiness, his smile genuine and his bow respectful.

“I was telling Jongdae here how tired you were from all that studying. I know it’s necessary, but it’s such a shame, such a shame. You both look so thin!”

“Mum,” Chanyeol interrupts. “Jongdae probably came to study, we should go.”

She gasps in such a dramatic way that has Jongdae and Chanyeol exchanging a glance and holding back a small chuckle.

“Of course,” she apologises. “You’re so serious,” she sighs, slowly shaking her head to herself.

Chanyeol can’t help the pang of guilt from stabbing him through his chest as she throws him a worried, but proud look. He doesn’t even deserve half of the merit she thinks he should be given, and if he once did, these past few weeks have changed everything. Sure, they still study but Chanyeol doesn’t memorize as much as he used to, and he doesn’t even try half as hard as he did in the beginning. The start of the new semester is just around the corner with the threat of piles of homework waiting for him as the red cross on his desk calendar gets closer, but Chanyeol finds it harder and harder to care.

“Oh, what is this?” his mother asks, breaking him out of his reverie.

He blinks and looks at Jongdae who’s gotten back on his feet, and more specifically, at the few flyers he’s holding. Vivid colours and large letters fill Chanyeol’s mind. He catches the smiling face of a young girl between Jongdae’s forefinger and middle finger.

“This?” Jongdae answers. “It’s just some flyers I found about a couple of universities.”

He flashes the first cover to Chanyeol’s mother. The smiling face of the young girl now comes with bold characters that take half of the page.

“Korea National University of Arts,” Mrs. Park reads. There’s a very slight pause, hardly noticeable, before she looks up and asks, “What do you want to study, Jongdae?”

The scene unfolds in slow motion. The smiling face of the student is still burning on Chanyeol’s retinas when he catches his mother’s slight hesitation, and it’s still making its way to his brain when Jongdae throws him a fleeting glance. Connecting the dots is surprisingly easy even though barely a second passes by, and Chanyeol’s heart leaps into his throat as his muscles painfully tense.

“Study!” he almost screams, thus startling his mum. “We have to study, mum!”

He grabs Jongdae by the wrist and hastily takes him out of the living room, away from his mother’s prying eyes, away from her questions and her hardly noticeable - but still there - pauses when art is mentioned. Jongdae doesn’t say anything as Chanyeol drags him to his room, he doesn’t say anything even when Chanyeol finally closes the door behind them, and he still doesn’t say anything when Chanyeol glares at him. Instead, he just adjusts the flyers between his fingers so that Chanyeol can easily read the name of the couple of universities he chose. They all have arts in their designations.

“What are you doing?” Chanyeol snaps.

His words whip the air around them, but Jongdae doesn’t flinch. He merely frowns, taken aback.

“I have something to show you,” he says, unsure. “I found these and I think you should take a look at them, especially the Korea National University of Arts because they have a - ”

“I don’t care”, Chanyeol hisses.

This time it draws more than a frown out of Jongdae. He takes in Chanyeol’s face as shadows take over his eyes, and his lips seem to uncurl slightly as he presses them into a thin line.

“No need to be so aggressive,” he mumbles.

“You can’t just barge and show those things to my mom,” Chanyeol says. “Didn’t you see the look she gave you when she saw the flyers?”

The look Jongdae sends him is new, unprecedented, and Chanyeol hopes that it will never come back. There’s a hint of disappointment and hurt in his eyes now, and his thin lips have been sucked inside his mouth. Chanyeol catches the slight tension running along Jongdae’s jawline as the latter grits his teeth. He doesn’t like it. He hates it, even. But he also can’t stop replaying the pause his mother had when she read the name of the university. It’s not one of the SKY universities, and that’s all that mattered to her, despite her cries about Chanyeol’s health. Chanyeol remembers how disappointed his parents were when Yura, despite getting accepted into Yonsei University, chose to go to Busan. She left behind her an unsettling silence in the room next to Chanyeol’s and a heavy weight on the latter’s shoulders.

“You don’t want to be an accountant,” Jongdae says. His tone is tense, almost threatening.

“You don’t want to be a business man either,” Chanyeol retorts. “And yet I don’t see you waving flyers at your parents.”

“I do want to get into Seoul National University though,” Jongdae snaps.

“Good for you.”

Jongdae stares in utter disbelief, and Chanyeol regrets how aggressive and violent he sounds before his sentence even ends. He can’t find anything else to say though, not when Jongdae is shooting holes in his face, freezing him on the spot and leaving him crushed and tongue-tied under the weight of his gaze. He looks furious and so, so disappointed that it is physically painful for Chanyeol. It feels tangible and real, and it poisons the air Chanyeol is breathing in. His heart shrinks in his chest.

“Alright,” Jongdae says. His eye bags look much paler against the darkness of his eyes. “Do whatever you want, I don’t care.”

He throws the flyers on Chanyeol’s desk, straight into a fragile pile of notes that crumbles on the side, and before Chanyeol can even think of something to say, Jongdae has turned on his heels. He doesn’t close the door behind him, doesn’t say goodbye. Completely unable to move, Chanyeol watches him cross the street with long, strained strides. Jongdae doesn’t look over his shoulder, doesn’t even pause before walking into his house. Chanyeol is left with nothing but tulips to stare at, and poison to breathe in as the oxygen left his lungs and his room with Jongdae.

One of the flyers slides off his desk and lands softly at his feet. The smiling face of the young girl stares at him, dimple and perfect white teeth taunting him. Chanyeol would step on it if he wasn’t scared he’d collapse, because the floor suddenly feels immaterial under his feet. Unreal. Gravity probably left with Jongdae too.

_________________________________

Chanyeol’s first time was not as romantic and worth-remembering as he had hoped it to be. However, he does remember it, and clearly.

He remembers the shade of Byulyi’s lipstick, he remembers the chemical taste that came with it when she kissed him, and he remembers how distant and fleeting she was, although he didn’t notice it at the time. With experience earned through years and years of growing older, he was able to gather the hints here and there in more or less distant memories. Moon Byulyi liked kissing him, and he liked kissing her and he used to think it could work like that, with longing glances at swollen lips, but it didn’t. Byulyi just liked kissing.

It was Chanyeol’s cousin birthday party, and it was packed and noisy. They were all around the same age, and they all had two months of dry pages and crumpled notes to drink away. There was loud music, whatever was noisy enough to cover the beating of their heats because it was all that mattered, and there were too many people to try and remember anyone’s name. But there weren’t enough faces for Chanyeol to miss the flash of red across the room, to not see how it parted and opened on perfect white teeth and how it finally disappeared against pinkish lips. Definitely not Chanyeol’s pink lips.

It hit him like a freight train, the sense of betrayal, the anger. The need to seek revenge. It was a party for oblivion and she had used it to forget him. Soon enough, he’d be in the back of her mind with the knowledge she had packed for her aptitude test, and she’d never come back to him. The big red cross on his calendar desk became not only a deadline, but also his best-before date. He had never realised how close the shade of red on her lips was to the ink flowing from his pen.

That is what Chanyeol remembers the most, along with the shame, the embarrassment when he blinked in an unfamiliar room, lying next to an unfamiliar body and not even recognizing his own. She didn’t wear lipstick, but her lips were swollen. He never saw her again.

He isn’t very sure, but he thinks he dreamed about the red cross that night. It was chasing him around with sharp arms and long legs that he could not outrun. It finally got to him. He was hit by the deadline and the best-before date became unavoidable.

_________________________________

Chanyeol never realised how lonely he was before Jongdae.

Now, it feels so overwhelming, tangible and suffocating. The music is so loud all around him, people are chatting, drinking and forgetting about their crosses, whether they’re red or black, on a desk calendar or heavy in their minds. Chanyeol hasn’t even thought about his once since he fought with Jongdae a few days ago. He leans over paper and books, and he reads, takes notes, recites and learns, but he has stopped thinking about the purpose or where it is all supposed to take him. He doesn’t feel like he’s moving forward anymore. The days pass by, but time doesn’t move, it’s still and it’s closing in on Chanyeol. He’s stuck and he is so, so lonely.

He blinks up from the couch he is sitting on. People - kids really - are dancing to oblivion. He catches a few hands holding, some arms wrapping around all types of waists. They’re not forgetting what they’re so eager to forget, they’re forgetting interdiction and propriety, but they don’t seem to mind. It looks fun to them, it looks freeing and much needed. Chanyeol locks eyes with an oddly familiar girl across the room seconds before she locks lips with a faceless stranger, red lipstick standing out in the room before it disappears like her fingers do under long strands of hair. Chanyeol looks away, the knot in his throat tightening.

He can’t help but think how nice it would be to be just like them, eager to lose themselves and so… normal. How many of them are aiming for SKY universities? How many of them want to run from them? Has Yura ever attended one of these parties before? Is that why she finally chose Busan over Yonsei University? Too eager to lose herself, too happy to run away from a dream that wasn’t hers… But Yura wanted to become a journalist. Yura wants to become a journalist. Chanyeol… Chanyeol just doesn’t want to become an accountant.

He closes his eyes, breathes in, but doesn’t hear the intake of air in the noisiness of the room. He needs to get out of here. No one will notice him leaving, anyway. They’re barely noticing themselves. If he has to be lonely, he might as well be alone too.

He leaves through the front door, and no one tries to stop him. He walks down the driveway, turns on the left and makes his way to his house, barely five minutes away from there. He can barely hear the party already, the noises coming from the city towering behind his back easily overpowering the sound a bunch of angry teenagers make. It feels dreadful to walk straight into the dead-end, dreadful and bitter, and with every step comes the suffocating certainty that he will never ever walk out of it. He stops when he catches the roses leading to the front door. There’s nothing left of their beauty under the moonlight, it’s just thorns and dark green leaves catching the artificial glare coming from the streetlights.

Chanyeol swallows and looks over his shoulder, at the similar house facing his. Jongdae’s parents’ car is nowhere to be seen, but he faintly remembers Jongdae mentioning a family gathering from which he had been very relieved to be exempted. It’s the same driveway, the same mailbox, and in the dullness of the night, it even looks like the same flowers. Something catches in the back of Chanyeol’s throat. He knows better, though. He knows the boy probably lying behind the closed shutters on the left side of the front wall is anything but ordinary. And Chanyeol never really realised how lonely he was before him.

He turns on his heels and hurries to his house. He slips inside as quietly as possible. His parents are both already in bed, but he doesn’t want to risk waking them up and having his mother rushing to him with questions that he doesn’t want to answer. He’s been having a hard time just looking at her in the eyes lately, he doesn’t think he would be able to hide how terrible he feels. He withdraws into his room and stop next to his desk, his heart thrumming in his chest. There’s a string around his waist, and it may be flexible, it isn’t elastic. Everytime he strays away from Jongdae, and everything that reminds him of Jongdae, it pulls him back violently, and it usually ends up with Chanyeol crashing against too many feelings.

Tonight, he crashes against a smiling face.

The flyer is back on his desk. It’s mostly red and white, like the notes it is hiding and the cross hovering over Chanyeol’s mess, but unlike everything else, it is not crumpled. The glazed paper shines bright under the light, so bright that it burns a white glare on Chanyeol’s retinas. No matter how blinding it is though, the smiling face still stands out. She has perfect teeth and an expressive eye smile, soft velvety hair and pink cheeks. She looks happy and free, she looks like she doesn’t care about SKY universities.

Chanyeol reaches out. His fingers slightly tremble when he takes the flyer, but they open it steadily. Red immediately floods his vision in different shades. There’s the bright, glaze-looking one, the neon one, but mostly, there’s the darker and patchy one, the one that poured from a pen and not from a huge professional printer. Chanyeol’s breath catches in the back of his throat. Words have been circled here and there, some of them even wear crowns, or large, bubbly exclamation marks. The biggest inscription comes after a large arrow that has been neatly filled in. It comes right next to ‘Department of Musical Technology’ and it leads to a handwritten word. Producer?

The string pulls hard, and this time, Chanyeol almost crashes against his door as he dashes out of his room. It keeps pulling, painful and so needy, as he runs across the street, bare foot. It pulls and pulls when he jumps over sleeping tulips, and it pulls when he knocks on the door hard enough to feel pain in his knuckles. It pulls until it finally snaps, and that happens when Jongdae opens the front door.

He watches Chanyeol with dark eyes. Moonlight falls on his face, highlights the eye bags, the sharpness of his features, and draws the shadow of his lashes on his cheekbones.

“Do you really think I could become a producer?” Chanyeol asks.

Jongdae glances at the flyer still in Chanyeol’s hand before shrugging.

“Why not?” he says. “You can be whatever you want. I thought you were decided on accounting?”

Jongdae’s voice is as still as the atmosphere in the street, but it’s much more real. It’s bitter, and sharp. Chanyeol winces as though he just got punched.

“What are you doing here?” Jongdae finally asks.

“I - I don’t know… I just saw what you wrote and…”

“Have you read the whole flyer?” Jongdae cuts him.

Chanyeol shakes his head. Jongdae lets out a low sigh before reaching out and catching Chanyeol’s hand. His fingers wrap around Chanyeol’s wrist and stop on his pulse point when he tightens his hold and pulls Chanyeol inside.

“Let’s read it together then,” Jongdae says, his voice softer. “And we’ll check the university website too, okay?”

Chanyeol looks down just as Jongdae looks up.

“Jongdae,” he starts, but pauses when Jongdae shakes his head. “Jongdae,” he says anyway.

Jongdae sighs again. He keeps Chanyeol’s wrist between his fingers and reaches out with his other hand to close the door behind Chanyeol. The latter breathes Jongdae’s smell, the fresh mint soap he showers with, and something sweeter, like banana. He looks down, and he realises that the string is still there, that it’s still pulling him back to Jongdae, and that he could have lost it, lost Jongdae.

He stares, and Jongdae stares back. He’s wearing pyjama pants that fall loosely on his ankles and cover half of his feet. Chanyeol catches a small smudge of red ink on Jongdae’s collarbone. He wonders how it ended up here, and he finds it so funny that his lips part over the question and an amused chuckle. But all that comes out is a broken sob and a rainstorm that crashes in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” he croaks out.

He pulls away from Jongdae’s hold and covers his face with embarrassment, but Jongdae’s fingers reveal to be as prying as they’ve always been. They counter attack with soft touches and gentle brush, and they peel Chanyeol’s hands away from his face. After the fingers come the lips, fleeting but warm on Chanyeol’s knuckles, and then it’s all of Jongdae against him, all of Jongdae embracing him. Chanyeol locks his arms around the small of Jongdae’s back and buries his face in the latter’s neck. He may be bending down, Jongdae is definitely the one holding him up.

“It’s okay,” Jongdae whispers, his fingers running through Chanyeol’s hair, and his other hand clenching on his shirt. “It’s okay, don’t worry…”

Chanyeol doesn’t hear Jongdae’s following words because of his sobs, but he does feel the gentle kiss on his temple, the comforting pressure of Jongdae’s arms around him, and the light warmth landing on his face whenever Jongdae speaks. He feels Jongdae’s body all against his, and if he felt lonely before, it’s now long forgotten. He lets out a weak chuckle that goes unnoticed in the midst of his painful cries, because the red ink smudge on Jongdae’s collarbone suddenly flashes through his mind. If he had a red pen right now, he too would try to circle Jongdae and draw a crown above his head.

“So you read the words I circled, didn’t you?” Jongdae whispers in his ears. Chanyeol gives a slight nod that has his lips brushing against Jongdae’s Adam apple. The latter mindlessly leans into the touch. “Have you noticed something about them?”

Chanyeol frowns. He blinks away the few tears still blurring his vision and pulls away just to look into Jongdae’s eyes. They’re as dark as they were when he opened his door, but they’re curling up this time, crinkles spreading at their outer corners. Jongdae slightly pouts upon seeing the look of confusion of Chanyeol’s face and goes to take the flyer out of Chanyeol’s hand. Just as mindlessly, as though it was more of an instinct than an intention, his other hand shoots up to Chanyeol’s face. His thumb catches a few tears, and he wipes them away ruthlessly before brushing Chanyeol’s jawline and grabbing him by his shirt to pull him closer.

“Look,” he says as he flips the flyer open in the small remaining space between them. He checks if Chanyeol is indeed looking - Chanyeol is not - and smiles at him. “They all belong to the lexical field of happiness.”

He looks up at Chanyeol with a wide smile on his lips. His knuckles keep brushing against Chanyeol’s stomach through the fabric he’s still holding in his closed fist. Chanyeol finally identifies the sweet smell of banana clinging to Jongdae as the smell of banana bread, and, as he blinks down at the flyer, he catches in the corner of his eyes the same ink smudge standing out against Jongdae’s pale skin. The lexical field of happiness.

Chanyeol chuckles lightly.

“I can’t believe you,” he whispers.

He knocks Jongdae’s hand with the back of his own hand, thus dismissing the flyer, and cups Jongdae’s face as he leans in while Jongdae instinctively tiptoes. Their lips meet in the middle, like the both of them have done for the past few weeks in the street, and the kiss comes with the same feeling of ecstasy they had when they were stretching their legs towards the horizon.

Chanyeol could count all of their kisses on his two hands, and this one is all of them at once. It has Jongdae’s own two hands clenching on his shirt, it has the insistence, the bolder touch and the shyness to go further. But it does go further, and that’s the only thing Chanyeol wants to feel for now. It’s like turning your back on a dead end and sitting on lines that run towards the horizon. It’s moving forward, going further, but with Jongdae, and it’s the best feeling ever.

Until, at least, affection and love swell in his chest when Jongdae breaks away to breathe and, mostly, chuckle against Chanyeol’s chin, his lips swollen and red under the yellowish light of the Kim’s lobby.

_________________________________

Sometimes, he wonders. It happens between two meetings, or two bites of his lunch sandwich. It happens at night, when he cannot sleep, or during the day, when he wishes he’d be sleeping. He wonders, although he tries not to, and it always starts with the same question.

How different would it have been if he had said something? And would it have been such a bad thing?

He has no idea what words he would have chosen, and what he would have said, even. He is not even sure he knew, back then, that he did not want to follow the path his parents were so eager to lay down at his feet. On days when he feels claustrophobic in his own skin and mind, he tracks down hints and proof that he wasn’t that stupid, that he did feel himself growing unfamiliar and vague. That’s all he is now: a blurred outline, a cloud of smoke right where there used to be a body.

When it gets pretty obvious that sleep won’t bless him with its presence, Chanyeol dives further into his questioning. He wonders what he would have done if he had been honest about his feelings. Would he have run away from the family house, like Yura did? Would he have dismissed the mere idea of university and instead learned a manual job? But, most of all… Would he have been happy? Happier.

Sometimes, when he feels brave enough, or gone far enough into his self-loathing, he wonders about old friends and acquaintances. He wonders about Do Kyungsoo, a lot. He was the best friend Chanyeol has ever had, still now, but he lost him when he lost himself. It didn’t feel right, to call him a friend when he couldn’t even label the face staring back at him in the mirror as being Chanyeol. He wonders if Kyungsoo became the Japanese translator he wanted to be. He wonders about Moon Byulyi and her red lipstick. Sometimes, he thinks he catches her on huge advertisement boards with some random cosmetics brand typed in big, fat characters. She would be great up there, selling dreams and illusions.

He wonders if they wonder about him. He hopes they don’t. He doesn’t want to wonder about himself as well. He missed his chance. He should have done it years ago. He should have been braver.

He should have paid attention.

_________________________________

Chanyeol stares at the sheets of paper he’s holding. He stares at the black ink neatly stretching over the whiteness of the paper. He can feel his heart thrumming in his chest, and something is buzzing in his ears. It may be excitement, it may be adrenaline, or it may even be madness. There are red circles here and there, nowhere as geometrical as Jongdae’s circles are because they’re his. They’re his, and they came from his own red pen. The sheets come from Jongdae, though. From Jongdae’s printer. Before that, they were on the Korea National University of Arts website, and before that, they didn’t exist. At least, not in Chanyeol’s world. Now, they do, though. They do, and they have so many words that could go in the lexical field of happiness, even more words that would fit in Chanyeol’s idea of the lexical field of happiness, and he struggles to wrap his mind around the fact that they were on a website until a few days ago, and that they’re now between his fingers, looking like what he’s always dreamed of.

He breathes in, but barely sucks in enough air to feed his whole body. He feels lightheaded and dizzy. His eyes fall on the little crown Jongdae drew at the top of the page, and the skin on the back of his hand tingle with the memory of the same pen drawing a very similar crown over his veins. It was nothing more than a game, back then. It was just Jongdae leaning into Chanyeol’s touch, as he always does, but now that the memory fills Chanyeol’s mind while he stares at the pages, he realises that it could be more. It could be the crown, and Chanyeol could be the word, and if he wanted, he could belong to the lexical field of happiness. He thinks about the crown he drew on Jongdae’s hipbone. He could belong to the lexical field of happiness, like Jongdae.

He wants to, so bad.

His body gives a jump as boiling adrenaline floods his veins, and he reaches out to take his phone. He opens Jongdae’s chatbox and starts typing.

im gonna do it, im gonna tell them

Jongdae’s answer is almost immediate.

middle of the street

Chanyeol lets out a low chuckle before throwing his phone away on his bed. He carefully folds the sheets and slides them under his pillow. He jumps out of his bed, adjusts his shirt and rushes out of his room. His mother is cooking in the kitchen; he can hear her hum as the dishes clink. His father is probably reading the papers with one eye, and watching her with the other, fondness all over his face. And Chanyeol is putting on his shoes, slipping out of the house and rushing to Jongdae, who’s already standing in the middle of the street.

Jongdae smiles at him, all crinkles and softness and slanted eyebrows. He’s slightly out of breath, just like Chanyeol, and for some reasons, it pleases the latter so much that he reaches out and takes Jongdae’s hand. The sun is hot and curious above their heads. Jongdae’s smile widens, and he does what he always does: he leans into Chanyeol touch. The space between them reduces to inches, and Jongdae celebrates with a soft kiss on the back of Chanyeol’s hand.

“Do you want me to come with you?” he asks.

Chanyeol chuckles and shakes his head.

“I’ll save the boyfriend revelation for later.”

Jongdae’s smile slightly falters as he looks into Chanyeol’s face.

“Boyfriend?” he repeats.

Chanyeol smiles, and Jongdae chuckles. He squeezes Chanyeol’s hand, his forefinger mindlessly reaching out to the inside of Chanyeol’s wrist.

“Okay then. I’ll be right here,” he says.

Chanyeol nods. He feels like leaning in and kissing Jongdae, but it’s so bright around them, and there are so many opened windows and drawn curtains. Jongdae’s eyes lower to Chanyeol’s lips, and that’s all it takes them to be almost kissing. That, and one of Jongdae’s low chuckle. He lets go of Chanyeol’s hand with a smile, his skin looking golden under the sun, and slightly nods. Chanyeol nods back.

He turns on his heels, and breathes in deeply, swallowing as much air as he can. He still feels lightheaded though. Adrenaline and nervousness are both starving creatures, and they have no mercy for oxygen molecules. Chanyeol breathes as slowly as he can, but the closer he gets to the front door, the harder it is not to give in to their intensity. He can smell the roses all around him, not as natural as it would have been in a wild field, but still intoxicating and pleasing, and his lungs give a few spasms in his chest.

He stops by the front step. If he were to reach out, his fingers would most surely brush against the wooden surface of the front door. On the other side, after the lobby and at the end of the short corridor, his mother is humming to songs only she knows, and his father is pretending to be worried about news when all he really cares about is the velvety blackness of his wife’s hair. At the end of another corridor - the only other corridor in the house - is Chanyeol’s room, and under Chanyeol’s pillows are a few pages, carefully folded. There’s a red crown filling the blank space at the top of the first page, and several red circles pointing out random words. Not so random, in the end.

Chanyeol climbs the only step. He looks over his shoulder, numbness now taking over his fingers. Jongdae is still standing in the middle of the street, a wide smile on his face, and his eyes squinting under the harsh glare of the sun. Chanyeol breathes in deeply and turns back to the door.

He reaches out and his fingers close on the doorknob. He knows exactly what words he’ll say.

Chanyeol wakes up with a start. His knee knocks into the wall and his elbow crashes against the bedside table. He has to cover his mouth to muffle his painful moans and the barely restrained curses filling his mind. He grew too tall for twin beds pretty early, but he used to master the art of body folding. Having a King size bed in his flat probably didn’t help him keep this very impressing skill.

Groaning, he rubs the sore spot on his knee, sleepiness still fogging his mind. He can tell that it’s still dark outside from the peacefulness and the distant twinkling streetlight slipping in his room through tiny cracks in his shutters. The room he has spent so many years in, studying, listening to music, daydreaming, turns into shadows and faint outlines at this ungodly hour. His book shelves are in the darkest corner. They stand out next to Chanyeol’s desk, on which most of the light lands. His desk calendar is still on December 2021, and it makes him smile. Time really never seems to fly by here, and that’s what he likes the most about his childhood home. It’s a safe haven, it’s always there, and always familiar. Next to Chanyeol’s shelves, there will always be his guitars’ cases. There will always be the first microphones and audio interfaces he bought, his old keyboard, and the huge knot of wires gathering dust. There will always be the square of whale wallpaper his dad left for him. There will always be room for him, even if it means curling up in a twin bed.

Chanyeol squints at his phone on the bedside table and at the green light it flashes every two seconds. He takes the device, unlocks it through half-closed eyelids, and feels a smile bloom on his lips as Jongdae’s name appears at the top of the screen.

say hi to your mum for me, okay? i’ll see you tomorrow <3

For a short second, Chanyeol feels like he should call Jongdae. He feels like he should dial his number and wait to hear his voice before going back to bed, just to make sure that Jongdae really is Jongdae, his Jongdae. It’s a roaring fear that fills his mind, buzzes through his ears, and it closes in on him with cold claws and hungry fangs. Frozen, Chanyeol can only blink and try to breathe as calmly as possible. That’s when he suddenly remembers about his nightmare, although it only comes in vague flashes. There’s something about numbers and lonely flats, something about going into accounting studies and red lipstick. He can’t really remember, and it doesn’t matter anyway. It was just a dream.

He turns on his side, groans when his knee crashes against the wall again, and forces his eyes shut.

He too needs to be well-rested for the recording of Jongdae's album.

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