Pandora's Bottle (2/3)
Chanyeol doesn’t open the voice message because he’s practically on the doorstep now but saves it to his mailbox for later (recordings of Luhan being annoying turn into recordings of Luhan being hilarious if you listen while drunk) and bids farewell to Baekhyun in the stairway.
Baekhyun’s cheesy goodbye grin gives Chanyeol enough fortitude to open Kyungsoo’s messages and briefly scroll down the list before he heads inside. It’s always a good strategy to assess Kyungsoo’s level of wrath before entering the war zone. From the last text, which was sent 43 minutes ago and reads, If you know what’s good for you…!, Chanyeol is betting he’s between Level Creepy Eyebrow Twitching and Level Check It Out My Death Glare Can Melt Glass! He takes a deep breath and pushes open the door, which is fortunately not barricaded.
“Oh, hey, sorry guys! I was just helping out a friend and lost track of time!” Chanyeol slips out of his shoes and pads over to lean against the sofa. “How’s it going!” Yixing grins placidly from the easy chair next to the reading lamp, his teeth glowing in the light of the TV screen in an eerie Cheshire cat effect.
“Oh yeah? Who’s preying on your soft heart for tutoring services these days?” Luhan asks, adjusting a felt three cornered hat on his head. Chanyeol thinks he recognizes it from one of Jonghyun hyung’s past Halloween getups.
“Oh, um, just a friend, hehe!” Chanyeol twists his own hat around so the brim is facing backwards and tries to pour himself a cup of the spiced rum and lemonade concoction Minseok calls grog without splashing anything in the dark.
“No need to be secretive, we heard our friendly neighbor’s voice in the hallway,” Kyungsoo says primly, not even glaring. Uh oh. Maybe he’s just waiting for some privacy once everyone clears out before letting loose on Chanyeol, but if he’s already reached Level Let’s Pretend Everything’s Normal angry, Chanyeol is in trouble.
Chanyeol pulls a kitchen chair up next to Yixing and slouches on the hard wooden seat, his legs too long to balance his heels comfortably on the rung and the coffee table just barely out of reach. He considers scootching his seat forward enough to prop his feet on the table but decides to just bite his tongue and endure; there’s no telling what random actions will just add to Kyungsoo’s offense.
The third Pirates installation finishes just after midnight and Luhan half drags, half carries a boneless Yixing out to Minseok’s car with promises they’ll be back to finish the marathon next Tuesday. Chanyeol heaves a sigh of relief once there’s finally space in the room to air out the unspoken words, but Kyungsoo goes straight into the bathroom and makes a show of locking the door before running the sink to brush his teeth. Chanyeol leans against the doorjamb in the hall, slimy tentacles of worry tugging at his gut while he waits for the water to stop its slow trickle down the pipes.
His mouth is open faster than the door when Kyungsoo finally emerges with a towel around his neck. Chanyeol rapidly explains that it totally wasn’t intentional, he really didn’t mean to cut out on Kyungsoo at the last minute but Baekhyun had suggested a study date and somehow he just agreed before he could realize that the words were coming out of his mouth, much less remember that Kyungsoo had penciled the movie night reminder into his day planner for him on the same day, and that he’s sorry, really really sorry, and that he’ll wash all the dishes this week if it would make Kyungsoo feel better, and that basically, he’s just sorry.
Kyungsoo blinks twice to indicate that you betcha Chanyeol is washing all the dishes for a week and walks straight past him into the bedroom and slams the door.
Kyungsoo doesn’t talk to him for a week and cooks nothing but potato jeon, which he thinks Chanyeol can’t stand because of that one time Chanyeol got food poisoning right after eating a platterful of the greasy dough. Chanyeol actually doesn’t mind potato pancakes in the least, but he doesn’t correct Kyungsoo’s misassumption and pretends to suffer anyway, hoping to pay his penance like a good and shamed deadbeat roomie.
By the weekend Chanyeol is thoroughly miserable from the silent treatment act Kyungsoo keeps up even in front of their friends so he starts hanging out with Baekhyun during lunch, too. Avoiding the problem only seems to make Kyungsoo glare harder, though, so on Tuesday Chanyeol decides that this has gone on long enough and something has to give.
So Chanyeol gives Kyungsoo a new spatula as an apology. He even spends the extra 6,000 Won just to get the limited edition turquoise color.
“If you think copying the childish tricks of our immature upstairs neighbors is going to make me forgive you, consider yourself wrong.” Kyungsoo slices the spatula through the air, testing the balance of the proportions in his sensitive fingers before heading for the sink.
“I’m sorry I was late to our movie last week! Are you really going to let it ruin tonight though?” Minseok, Luhan, and Yixing are due to ring their doorbell in less than an hour for Pirates Marathon: Part II, and Chanyeol would really like to be able to actually enjoy it this time.
“You’re such a dolt, Park Chanyeol!” Kyungsoo doesn’t even turn around from the sink where he’s peeling more potatoes. “This is not about you being late!”
“Then I don’t even know what I did!” Chanyeol wails as Kyungsoo pads over to turn on the stove, apparently planning to break in the new spatula on a batch of jeon regardless of his continuing grudge.
“Then why don’t you spend some time thinking about it?” Kyungsoo snaps as he breaks an egg into his favorite mixing bowl.
Chanyeol resolves right there from his perch on the saggy left cushion of the sofa to think long and hard about the situation until Kyungsoo is satisfied and quits making nothing but potatoes. (Not that he would complain about his roommate being nice and giving him edible food, it’s just that eating the same dish for every meal is getting old. Has been since like Thursday). But before he can get anywhere productive with his thoughts Luhan’s banging on their door and demanding fuzzy blankets and grog, and somehow the rest of the whole next week ends up too busy to do things like think.
Tutoring Baekhyun keeps him pretty busy, for one.
They’re meeting at the library every other day now since the math tutoring sessions somehow expanded to include general homework time. It’s not that Chanyeol is avoiding going home exactly, it’s just that the library is less stressful. The only person who ever glares in the library is the cranky old man behind the reference desk and Chanyeol could care less about his fine opinion, at least when Baekhyun’s arm is linked through his and they’re swinging a bag of illegal oreos between them on their way up to their secret corner on the third floor. There are just some things he can’t share with Kyungsoo, and that includes the thrill of eating cookies in a prohibited area.
“So…” Baekhyun says, licking blueberry icing off half an oreo with a twirl of his tongue. “Noraebang? Thursday?”
“Ok,” Chanyeol nods, not even pretending not to stare at Baekhyun’s tongue acrobatics.
“You should bring your roomie, ‘cause I still haven’t met him but you talk about him all the time and I’m curioussss!” Baekhyun scrapes his bottom teeth across the chocolate surface to get at the last stubborn bits of filling.
“I do?” Chanyeol asks as Baekhyun takes the opportunity to shove the now icing free half a cookie in his mouth.
“Oh god,” Baekhyun groans, snorting chocolate crumbs onto his Comp Theory textbook. “Since I’ve already heard all about his teeth brushing habits and how adorable he looks when he’s flustered, it’s getting awkward we haven’t even met.”
“Oh.” Baekhyun does have a point. And then Chanyeol can’t stop thinking about it, thoughts of Kyungsoo’s adorable stuttering and Kyungsoo’s huge brown eyes pushing out any remaining room to consider anything else.
That is until Luhan peeks his head around a pillar.
“Ooh, are those the blueberry ones? I love these!” he squeals, snatching the last tray of cookies out of the bag.
“Hey, Hyung!” Baekhyun flashes a peace sign and a double wink. Luhan ruffles his hair.
“Shooo!” Luhan says, turning to Chanyeol with his mouth full of half chewed oreo. “A widdle bird tode me shumwum’s been getting cojee in de wibrary!”
“Eheh! Who told you that?” Chanyeol laughs awkwardly, suddenly wishing Kyungsoo were around to tell Luhan to chew with his mouth closed.
“‘S not important,” Luhan says after swallowing, wiping his mouth on his shirt sleeve.
“We’re just studying, Hyung.” Baekhyun raps his knuckles on the front cover of his textbook.
“Uh huh,” Luhan nods. “Behind a pillar in a secluded corner of the third floor.” He taps his fingers thoughtfully against his chin in a steady rhythm.
“We’re just hiding the snacks from the librarian,” Chanyeol says. “You’re welcome for the cookies, by the way.”
“Mmhmm!” Luhan hums ambiguously before disappearing around the corner with a little skip and a trail of crumbs.
“Ugh,” Bekhyun groans, faceplanting into his open backpack that’s propped against the pillar. “Ready to call it a day? I think my neurons are all fried.”
“Ok,” Chanyeol sighs, scraping his Econ notes back into his folder. Maybe Kyungsoo will still be up when they get back since it’s only just after 10:00.
Baekhyun hurries down the spiral staircase to the main floor. It’s a good thing his legs are so short or Chanyeol might have a hard time keeping up with him, especially with his penchant for skipping steps, sometimes three at a time.
Neither of them has anything to check out so Chanyeol follows Baekhyun as he plunges past the security detectors and the front doors onto the sidewalk, the crotchety old head librarian’s judging stare following them out as if he can see oreo crumbs clinging to the corners of their mouths.
Baekhyun halts under a lamppost to check his phone messages and Chanyeol discovers there really are a few crumbs of cookie sticking at the edges of Baekhyun’s mouth, either that or he’s suddenly sprouted a few new freckles on his upper lip.
“What are you staring at, Park?” Baekhyun asks, glancing up with a thoughtful look.
“Oh, nothing!” Chanyeol says with a quick smile. Baekhyun just shrugs and resumes typing away with both thumbs. Chanyeol pulls out his own phone to keep from staring because Baekhyun’s mouth is really cute in all its crumb covered glory, almost as pretty as Kyungsoo’s, even.
Chanyeol chances a look up, just to make sure the crumbs are still there. They are, and now he’s itching more than ever to brush them away and Baekhyun looks utterly adorable in an impish kind of way, his little smudge of a nose casting a smooth spill of shadow over the slope of his cheek. Chanyeol can’t quite make out the faint dusting of pale freckles he knows is there but he wonders if he could still feel them under his fingertips if he just-
“Agh!” Chanyeol groans, scraping his nails up and down the skin of his bare arms.
“What’s wrong?” Baekhyun gasps, leaning up to get a better look at Chanyeol’s face as he pockets his phone.
“I feel all-itchy!” Chanyeol whines, digging his nails in deeper to keep them from digging into something else far more tempting.
“Spring allergies?” Baekhyun bites his lip with a sympathetic look. All Chanyeol can do is nod, even though Baekhyun’s the one who’s making his skin crawl with tiny prickles of opportunity and future and what-if. “We’d better get you inside, huh?”
Baekhyun says goodnight at the stairs and Chanyeol takes a moment to collect his thoughts (and his fingernails) before going inside to face Kyungsoo. He rakes his nails down the sides of his arms one last time, sucks stale hall air deep into his lungs, and kicks the last of his frustration into the welcome mat.
He also kicks a heavy round thing with the instep of his sneaker. It’s some kind of dish, covered in tin foil with a note stuck on top:
Best wishes and good vibes,
From: your Constant Admirer
There’s no signature, not even a sloppy one running off the edge of the sticky note, so Chanyeol scoops up the pan and decides to ask Kyungsoo about it, if he heard any strange noises outside, or if any phantoms happened to ring the doorbell while he was out.
Kyungsoo is in fact awake and in a fairly decent mood when Chanyeol steps inside. “How was your study date?” he asks evenly, humming softly under his breath as he leafs through a recent issue of some cooking magazine Joonmyun gave him a subscription to for his birthday.
“It was cool.” Chanyeol kicks off his shoes and dumps his bag on the tile next to them. He slides the mystery pan onto the kitchen counter and plucks at a corner of the foil molded neatly around the dish. The kitchen is clean and perfectly in order, no stray crumbs, wet dishcloths, or wire cooling racks in sight, so no stress baking happened while he was gone for the first time in weeks. What a relief.
Chanyeol sighs and rips into the foil, tearing a wide strip across the middle. “Hey Soo, did anything happen while I was gone?”
“What kind of something?” The magazine rustles as Kyungsoo turns a page.
“Well, I don’t know, but I found this on the doorstep!” Kyungsoo peeks his head over the back of the couch as Chanyeol holds up the cake pan, now divested of half of the meticulously crimped foil.
“Oh my.” Kyungsoo delicately wrinkles his nose. “What have you there?”
“I know, right? It was just laying outside our front door, with no trace of where it came from! I think it’s a cheesecake? Maybe?” Chanyeol pokes at a blueberry.
“Was there a note?” Kyungsoo asks, sliding back down out of sight.
“Yeah, but it didn’t really say anything. And no signature like last time, so I doubt it was-well…”
“You don’t recognize the handwriting?” Kyungsoo flips forward three pages as Chanyeol fumbles for the sticky note. The letters are very neat, almost perfectly printed, like a grade school teacher or some kind of professional pen tester wrote them.
“Not really?” Chanyeol shrugs. There are hardly enough letters there to get a feel for the handwriting style. “Maybe whoever delivered it wrote the note for the sender, although there’s no bakery box so I can’t exactly call and ask. Weird.” Chanyeol crinkles the remaining strip of foil into a tight ball and pulls open the silverware drawer.
“But the note is on a post-it, not a proper card, so don’t-um, I mean,” Kyungsoo clears his throat as Chanyeol successfully locates his lucky spoon, the one with the slightly bent handle Kyungsoo’s always threatening to get rid of. “If it’s not in a box, why do you think it’s from a bakery? It doesn’t look homemade?”
Chanyeol turns toward the couch to find Kyungsoo sitting up again and fixing him with an intense stare. His hair is slightly tousled from lying on the sofa but his cheeks are a soft pink, just the shade of the streaks of raspberry juice seeping into the sour cream topping of the cake and-
Chanyeol shakes his head and looks away. “I don’t know…it just looks kind of perfect?” Kyungsoo makes a muffled sound in his throat and Chanyeol’s gaze darts back. Kyungsoo looks like he’s about to protest, but then he just bites his lip and flops back onto his belly. Chanyeol sinks into the nearest kitchen chair and scratches an itchy patch behind his left elbow. “I grabbed you a fork, you want some dessert?”
“No no, you just enjoy that.” Kyungsoo waves his fingers over the back of the sofa. Chanyeol digs in. He’s kind of surprised Kyungsoo isn’t making a fuss with comments about food left out in the open where rats can get to it and spread horrible diseases, but he’s glad. Chanyeol’s glad he can enjoy a quiet moment in their living room, and he’s glad he can enjoy the dessert, which is in fact an amazingly creamy cheesecake with strawberry filling and something chocolatey in the bottom.
It does bother him a little that he has no idea where it came from. As much as he wishes Baekhyun was his Constant Admirer, the note looks nothing like the one carefully preserved in the back of his day planner. And how could Baekhyun have known his favorite dessert is cheesecake with berries, the more berries the better? Unless he got help from someone. Whoever this admirer person is, they did their homework.
Chanyeol stands up with a satisfied groan to slide the uneaten half of the cake into the fridge and rinse off his fork. He downs a glass of water to help his stomach settle and lingers in the doorway to the bathroom, hunting for his toothbrush on the cluttered counter.
“You know, I wonder if Baek knows anything about the mystery note, since he is in the habit of leaving them himself,” Chanyeol wonders aloud as he squeezes out a long strip of toothpaste onto his brush. Kyungsoo snorts loudly from behind the sofa.
“How could he leave that note if he spent all evening with you at the library?” Chanyeol flinches at Kyungsoo’s suddenly harsh tone.
“How do you know who I was with?” Chanyeol frowns at his reflection in the mirror as he wets his brush, then flicks off the sink. “Why do you always have to assume things?” He kind of hates how defensive Kyungsoo gets every time Baekhyun’s name comes up in conversation.
“Well, I know you’re not meeting Luhan hyung over there, that’s for sure!” Kyungsoo snarls, sliding off the sofa and replacing his magazine on the neat stack of periodicals on the coffee table. Chanyeol watches him stretch his back over the armrest. “No alcoholic drinks allowed on the premises!”
“Well that’s where you’re wrong!” Chanyeol shoves his toothbrush in his mouth and slams the bathroom door before Kyungsoo can start a real argument.
(part one here) (part three here)