[wip dump] brief forays into exo fandom
These were written back when I thought about joining EXO fandom. there are a million more 200-word snippets floating around in my Google drive that were never developed enough to be worth digging out (RIP always-a-girl!Kris, thirsty aspiring rapper Chanyeol/music blogger Kyungsoo). Unfortunately, Kris and then Lu Han left, rendering most of my more finished WIPs useless. I was never a serious EXO fan (another reason I could never finish a fic...) and I'm sure the characterization/meta in these reflect that u__u
Chanyeol and Zitao go clubbing
You can ask anyone, and they’d tell you about how shockingly well-behaved Chanyeol was after debut. Pre-debut, the timbre of his voice and the streak of reckless rowdiness preceded him. The latter, combined with a naturally careless, sunny disposition ignited something fiercely protective in the handful of fans he’d garnered already, many of whom took to shouting warnings so cryptic whenever they saw him that Baekhyun, in his first months, became genuinely concerned about Chanyeol’s safety.
“Your fans are terrifying,” he said, examining the card Chanyeol got on his eighteenth birthday.
[boring meta/buildup blah blah]
“Want to go out tonight?” Chanyeol asks, rubbing a towel through his hair. They’ve just finished dance practice for the night, and don’t have to be in the studio until nine tomorrow. It’s only eleven and Chanyeol got five whole hours of sleep last night. He feels fucking invincible.
Kris laughs, sounding incredulous. “What, are you serious?” he asks, when Chanyeol just looks at him, expectant.
“When am I not?” Chanyeol demands, then flicks his towel so it catches Lu Han on the butt as he passes. “You coming?”
Lu Han puts a finger to his chin, giving Chanyeol an assessing look. “I will if duizhang does,” he finally says, and swings his head around to look at Kris. Chanyeol, catching the edge of Lu Han’s grin, whoops.
Kris groans. “Don’t do this to me,” he says, which only makes Chanyeol and Lu Han widen their eyes at him even more, Chanyeol leaning down slightly to put his face right next to Lu Han’s. “Stop,” Kris says, laughing, and pushes at their cheeks. “Alright, fine. Stop looking like that, Chanyeol.”
“Yes!” Chanyeol crows, bumping hips with Lu Han. He ends up bumping a little too hard, sending Lu Han stumbling into Zitao, who’d been hovering around, looking hopeful.
“Are you going out tonight?” he asks after he steadies Lu Han. The forced casualness of his tone, plus his already shitty Korean, makes the question more comical than he probably means.
“Yeah,” Kris says, always too good to Zitao, and brings a hand up to ruffle at his hair. Chanyeol catches the way Kris’ eyes soften at Zitao pulling away with a scowl a split second too late. “Wanna come?” he asks, before Chanyeol can hustle them towards the door and away from the eager, prying look in Zitao’s eyes.
“Yes please,” Zitao says quickly, tripping over the ‘please,’ which makes Lu Han laugh, too. He throws an elbow into Zitao’s side, slipping into the teasing lilt of his Mandarin as he and Kris head out, Zitao a step behind.
Zitao throws a quick look over his shoulder at Chanyeol bringing up the rear, dragging his and Baekhyun’s duffel bags behind him. When he catches sight of the impressively blank look on Chanyeol’s face, he bites his lip in an awkward grimace, swiveling his head back around.
*
Truthfully, Zitao wasn’t anywhere close to third on his list. Hell, he wasn’t sure Zitao was even on the list. But he was, for whatever reason, on both Kris and Lu Han’s lists, and Kris and Lu Han were top five on Chanyeol’s on a good day. Even on a bad day, Chanyeol liked Lu Han enough that he’d grudgingly let Zitao be his plus-one. Though it wasn’t that Chanyeol didn’t like Zitao, don’t get him wrong, because he did -- or at least he didn’t mind -- but he never actively sought him out, never thought much of Zitao or what to say to him until he was there in front of him.
“Duizhang’s asleep,” Zitao calls out to him, voice soft. He’s in an awkward position on the couch, body twisted over the arm as he texts, or updates his Weibo, or whatever it is he’s always doing on his phone. When he turns to face Chanyeol, he ends up pulling his phone charger out of the wall, and he curses.
“He’s asleep?” Chanyeol repeats, and frowns a little.
“Yeah,” Zitao says, giving up on trying to plug his charger back into the wall. “He looked really tired,” he says, working his lower lip into his mouth. “You probably shouldn’t wake him up.”
“Huh,” Chanyeol says, and gets a good look at Zitao. He’s in tight black jeans and a mesh gray tank, his snapback with the leopard print on the coffee table in front of him. A black bomber jacket is thrown too casually over the back of the couch next to him for it to be unintentional. This asshole, Chanyeol thinks, fighting the urge to roll his eyes; he’s ready to go out.
Chanyeol continues towards Kris’ room anyway, knocking lightly once once he gets there. There’s no response, not that he expected one, and he pushes the door open. Kris is sprawled over his bed on his back, shirt rucked up over his stomach. In the light from the hallway behind him, Chanyeol can see that Kris’ hair is still a little sticky from whatever product he had to put in it today, but that his face is perfectly bare, and probably deep-pore moisturized, too.
It’s calculatingly unreliable -- Chanyeol could probably wake him up, and Kris would grouse as he pushes the sleep from his eyes, but he’d still go out, first because he liked Chanyeol and second because he’d promised. His eyelids flutter, as if he knows what Chanyeol’s thinking, and that minute movement hits Chanyeol right where it counts, dredging up all the little-brother guilt Yura had spent years drilling into him.
Typical Kris, Chanyeol thinks, suddenly affectionate, and steps a little closer. Kris grunts and rolls onto his side, hand dropping loosely over the side of his bed. His phone tumbles out of his hand and buzzes when it hits the floor, as if indignant at the way it’s being treated.
Chanyeol stoops to pick it up, and then takes two careful selcas as he perches on the edge of Kris’ bed. The first one he takes from below, the flash terrifying where it illuminates his face, and he sets that one as Kris’ lock screen. The second, he puckers his lips as he twists himself so his face is right next to the patch of bare stomach, making sure to angle it so there’s a hint of Kris’ face in the picture. be more careful with your image, Kris-hyung!! ㅋㅋㅋㅋ he writes around the edge, decorating the picture with some well-placed sparkles before setting it as Kris’ background. As a last courtesy, he plugs the phone into the charger, then blows Kris a kiss from the doorway. Kris’ brow furrows as if he knows, even in sleep, that he is being teased.
==
The way this was gonna end was that Chanyeol and Zitao go to the club, Chanyeol sees some guy hitting on Zitao, he is [shocked] but can't stop thinking about it after that. Blah blah angst or something, they hook up, Chanyeol realizes he doesn't think Zitao is annoying anymore. #NothingHappens. Anyway, now Chanyeol and Zitao love each other/are the most exciting part of EXO so this concept is obsolete.
Zitao gets older and finds a new favorite
“Tao, you’re with Sehun tonight, okay?” As always, this was a non-choice disguised as a choice, as Seunghwan-hyung was already wedging the room key into the negligible space between Zitao’s fisted left hand and his cheek. Zitao’s right hand was holding his phone, on which he and Sehun were watching Chinese comedy clips Sehun laughed at only when the laugh track did, giving off the distinct impression he was much better at Chinese than he was, which was not at all. The amount of work he put into being lazy was probably the only reason he was still somehow wrangling his way out of extra Chinese lessons.
“Hyung, you’re messing up my foundation,” Zitao whined, looking up at Seunghwan-hyung from the hotel lobby bench he and Sehun were crowded on, but Seunghwan-hyung was immovable, and it only made him shake his head and say tiredly, “I’m onto you, Tao-yah.”
A few feet away, Kris was standing next to Yixing when Seunghwan-hyung came around with the keys and so he was rooming with Yixing, who gave a solemn thumbs up in response when Seunghwan-hyung gestured between the two of them, room key already on its way to middle of Yixing’s palm.
“Lucky me,” Yixing said, as Seunghwan-hyung moved on to Chanyeol and Baekhyun, refusing to give them keys until they chose different roommates. Chanyeol latched himself to Kyungsoo’s back, whose face turned impenetrable but terrifying. “It’s usually Zitao who gets to room with you.”
“All birds have to fly the coop one day,” Lu Han mused in his wise hyung voice from behind them, taking one of Kris’ earbuds to see what he was listening to. He was rooming with Minseok, who was dozing off with his eyes open behind a pillar, because Lu Han was always rooming with Minseok.
Kris snorted. “Work harder on your idioms, Lu-ge,” he told him in a tone-deaf imitation of their language teacher, and took the earbud back.
It really had been a while since he’d roomed with someone else. But it would be nice to room with Yixing again, who went to bed at reasonable times and of his own accord and wouldn’t keep saying, haha, ge, look at this, as he giggles down his Weibo feed, forgetting already Kris had said he was trying to sleep five minutes ago.
*
No one was surprised when Kris was named leader of EXO-M. The 185 centimeters certainly helped but, more importantly, he’d been duizhang to SM’s small but scrappy contingent of Chinese trainees for the past three years, if not in name then in practice. There wasn’t anyone better suited to the job.
When it came down to Sehun, he was popular enough in both China and Korea that he could’ve been in either -K or -M. But the thought of Jongin as -K’s maknae was laughable, a disaster both in terms of marketing and Jongin’s psychological well-being, so Zitao ended up -M’s maknae by default. It worked out in his favor, playing maknae to Kris’ leader. In the context of the leader/maknae relationship, Zitao’s cloying dependency suddenly seemed sweeter, less exasperating. When it came to Kris, he’d always been lucky. A company translator had been assigned to Zitao when he first arrived in South Korea but two weeks after Zitao and Kris’ first meeting, she was essentially out of a job. Kris was still in his embarrassing anime hairstyle phase then, but it didn’t matter. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and spoke Korean as well as English-not completely impeccably, but, hey, Zitao had spent at least half his time in high school English class reading comic books under his desk anyway. For Zitao, it was love at first sight. And for Kris, it was responsibility at the first ge that left the shy pout of Zitao’s mouth.
Zitao was lucky they had rap practice together, not so lucky that they were on different dance and language class schedules. He took to waiting in the hall for Kris’ class to end no matter how subtly or overtly Kris tried to tell Zitao he wasn’t doing himself any favors by it. It was difficult because Zitao, for all that his appearance might have suggested, was childish and self-centered in a way Kris knew logically should annoy him, but instead he somehow found so endearing that he could feel it wear down his, admittedly not too strong to begin with, defenses.
A few weeks before EXO’s lineup was finalized, though they didn’t know it at the time, they went on a bike ride to the river.
They were sitting on a bench by the river, their bikes resting against each other next to them. Zitao was drinking half a bubble tea next to him, the other half of which Kris had poured out into a nearby trashcan. Indulgences were okay as long as they were regulated. “Do you think you’re going to debut?” Kris asked, holding a hand up to shade his eyes against the glare of the setting sun.
Zitao stopped sucking at the tapioca at the bottom of his cup to nod. “Of course I do,” he said. Lu Han, who knew all about affection-grim parents, had been convinced of Zitao’s loveless household. “How else can you explain how much he loves attention?” he’d argued during Korean conversation practice. They were gossiping, but pretending they were talking about a drama. “I’m telling you, it’s the only reason.”
Zitao’s mom came to visit for a weekend, and ended up taking them all out for dinner.
*
Parents weekend, Lu Han had called it, even though it was over a Wednesday-Thursday and thus technically not a weekend. Even the promise of their impending official mainland debut couldn’t keep the grimace off his face nor the mild derision out of his voice as he said it. Minseok and Jongdae’s flight from Seoul was landing early Friday morning, bringing them in after a rare break at home before Chinese promotions-or as Jongdae had called it: 24/7 Chinese class, basically hell, to which Baekhyun had responded, yeah, but at least you get to spend it with Yifan, I mean, Kris-hyung, only half-joking-would begin.
Yixing had gone home to Changsha on the first flight out Tuesday night, and it’s been radio silence since then. Zitao, they received a group chat selca from the minute he’d arrived in Qingdao, his mother in the picture with him dark-haired, blurry, noticeably better-looking than him. ma is the prettiest~ like mother like son, right!!! he’d typed.
Only Kris ended up responding. He’d just talked to his own mother on the phone for an hour, a luxury of sorts too, and then had gone out for noodles afterwards with their manager-hyung. The theme of the night was to look eight centimeters shorter, average height, so he didn’t bother with washing his face or changing his sweatshirt, something old and ill-fitting that might have once belonged to Chanyeol. Lu Han was dropped back off at the hotel Thursday night by choice. They ate Kris’ leftovers together while watching the 47th episode of a wuxia drama they didn’t need to see the previous 46 episodes to understand before turning in early, taking advantage of the open rooms.
Yixing and Zitao were first back the next morning, arriving at the hotel just as Kris was done washing up. “Did you gain weight?” Lu Han asked Yixing with delight and more than just a little relief when he first saw him, right hand pinching Yixing’s side and left hand reaching out for the homemade goodies Yixing’s grandparents always sent back with him.
Zitao had a new pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head, and the scarf his mother had been wearing in the selca he’d sent out knotted haphazardly around his throat. “Hi,” he said to everyone, beaming, the effect of two days of his family’s fussing shining from his face. Kris’ room, which he’d slept in alone the night before, seemed brighter already.
==
This is obsolete for obvious reasons. WHY DID I LOVE LU HAN AND KRIS IN FIC SO MUCH? I guess because I really liked Lu Han, and Tao really liked Kris. I think the way this one was gonna end was: Zitao gets more confident and starts hanging out with other people, doesn't cling to Kris as much anymore, loves Sehun (heh) (jk) (I mean not really jk bc this is Real Life), Kris feels a little unsettled/bereft, ~muses on his mortality~ (ok jk for real), #NothingHappens but Kris and Zitao talk about it, Kris owns up that it wasn't just Zitao who needed their relationship.
★ IDOL’S DAY OFF EPISODE 1: Taemin & Kai, Best Friends With Youthful Abandon! ★
Jongin’s phone broke into the chorus of SHINee’s latest single just as Sehun knocked on the doorframe, leaning a hip against it and watching as Jongin tried to pick up the phone while zipping his duffel bag shut. The cameraman in the corner zoomed in on Sehun trying and mostly failing to stifle a laugh. It was already the third take. The first time, Sehun had spit a little in his attempt not to laugh, which had the unfortunate consequence of sending Jongin into a laughing fit so hard he was still wheezing by the second take, ruined by Baekhyun forgetting they were filming today. The producer waved a cheerful OK at them from the other corner, and Jongin almost ruined it by sighing in relief. Jongin wasn’t sure how many more times he could take hearing the same first three seconds of SHINee’s latest bubblegum electropop hit before he personally set fire to their dorm.
“What?” he grunted into the phone, finally getting the bag shut with a decisive zip.
“Yah! Did you oversleep or something, lazy? I’m downstairs!” Taemin leaned on his horn for good measure and Jongin winced, hearing the blare once over the phone and then again through the open inch of his window.
“Yeah, yeah. Keep your hair on, hyung,” Jongin said, cramming a snapback on his head. “I’m coming.”
He hung up, tucking the phone into his back pocket. Then he looked at Sehun, still in the doorway. “What?”
“Taemin-hyung’s outside,” he said, unhelpfully. Jongin almost snorted. As if Sehun would ever be that obedient; he hasn’t called Taemin ‘hyung’ in years. And then, eyes wide, “Hyunkyun-hyung’s going to be back soon. Are you sure it’s okay?” He bit his lip in mock concern and Jongin almost lost his shit-Sehun sounded remarkably unconvincing, even for SBS. He had to be the number one worst choice for this, but the PD had taken one look at Sehun and fallen head over heels in love with the idea of Sehun the cold but responsible maknae. Noonas always liked him better.
“He’s cold because he’s worried no one will take him seriously,” she’d said, eyes shining as she patted Sehun’s hand. “Abandonment issues are no joke, Jongin-sshi!” Sehun nodded solemnly at this, his mouth tugging into an exaggerated pout Jongin wanted to punch. From Taemin’s delicate snort on his other side, Jongin gathered that he wasn’t alone in that sentiment.
“Abandonment issues,” Jongin had repeated skeptically. It was their first script run-through for Idol’s Day Off, an SBS throwback to the good old days of idol reality entertainment. Day Off would allow fans an intimate look into what their favorite idols did in their spare time out of the spotlight. SBS believed that this could be accomplished by, curiously, thrusting them into the spotlight. This apparent moral contradiction seemed to bother absolutely no one at all.
He and Taemin had been approached to film a three-episode package, rounding out a fairly impressive all-star cast to kick off the debut-Lee Hyori, Yoona and Lee Seunggi, and Jung Joonyoung.
==
This was written in the euphoric aftermath of the great Taemin/Jongin Dating Scandal. This is the only one I wish I could finish and almost didn't post it here but then I needed to be honest with myself and being honest with myself means owning up to the fact that I'll never finish this u__u I might steal my own concept for another fandom, though. Anyway, the trajectory for this fic (which I also didn't want to write because there was too much (read: any) research involved): Taemin and Jongin go on an international playdate, have the most fun either of them has had in years (ha), make out in their Tokyo hotel room after a day at Tokyo Disney, go home while holding hands secretly on the plane.
Chanyeol and Zitao go clubbing
You can ask anyone, and they’d tell you about how shockingly well-behaved Chanyeol was after debut. Pre-debut, the timbre of his voice and the streak of reckless rowdiness preceded him. The latter, combined with a naturally careless, sunny disposition ignited something fiercely protective in the handful of fans he’d garnered already, many of whom took to shouting warnings so cryptic whenever they saw him that Baekhyun, in his first months, became genuinely concerned about Chanyeol’s safety.
“Your fans are terrifying,” he said, examining the card Chanyeol got on his eighteenth birthday.
[boring meta/buildup blah blah]
“Want to go out tonight?” Chanyeol asks, rubbing a towel through his hair. They’ve just finished dance practice for the night, and don’t have to be in the studio until nine tomorrow. It’s only eleven and Chanyeol got five whole hours of sleep last night. He feels fucking invincible.
Kris laughs, sounding incredulous. “What, are you serious?” he asks, when Chanyeol just looks at him, expectant.
“When am I not?” Chanyeol demands, then flicks his towel so it catches Lu Han on the butt as he passes. “You coming?”
Lu Han puts a finger to his chin, giving Chanyeol an assessing look. “I will if duizhang does,” he finally says, and swings his head around to look at Kris. Chanyeol, catching the edge of Lu Han’s grin, whoops.
Kris groans. “Don’t do this to me,” he says, which only makes Chanyeol and Lu Han widen their eyes at him even more, Chanyeol leaning down slightly to put his face right next to Lu Han’s. “Stop,” Kris says, laughing, and pushes at their cheeks. “Alright, fine. Stop looking like that, Chanyeol.”
“Yes!” Chanyeol crows, bumping hips with Lu Han. He ends up bumping a little too hard, sending Lu Han stumbling into Zitao, who’d been hovering around, looking hopeful.
“Are you going out tonight?” he asks after he steadies Lu Han. The forced casualness of his tone, plus his already shitty Korean, makes the question more comical than he probably means.
“Yeah,” Kris says, always too good to Zitao, and brings a hand up to ruffle at his hair. Chanyeol catches the way Kris’ eyes soften at Zitao pulling away with a scowl a split second too late. “Wanna come?” he asks, before Chanyeol can hustle them towards the door and away from the eager, prying look in Zitao’s eyes.
“Yes please,” Zitao says quickly, tripping over the ‘please,’ which makes Lu Han laugh, too. He throws an elbow into Zitao’s side, slipping into the teasing lilt of his Mandarin as he and Kris head out, Zitao a step behind.
Zitao throws a quick look over his shoulder at Chanyeol bringing up the rear, dragging his and Baekhyun’s duffel bags behind him. When he catches sight of the impressively blank look on Chanyeol’s face, he bites his lip in an awkward grimace, swiveling his head back around.
*
Truthfully, Zitao wasn’t anywhere close to third on his list. Hell, he wasn’t sure Zitao was even on the list. But he was, for whatever reason, on both Kris and Lu Han’s lists, and Kris and Lu Han were top five on Chanyeol’s on a good day. Even on a bad day, Chanyeol liked Lu Han enough that he’d grudgingly let Zitao be his plus-one. Though it wasn’t that Chanyeol didn’t like Zitao, don’t get him wrong, because he did -- or at least he didn’t mind -- but he never actively sought him out, never thought much of Zitao or what to say to him until he was there in front of him.
“Duizhang’s asleep,” Zitao calls out to him, voice soft. He’s in an awkward position on the couch, body twisted over the arm as he texts, or updates his Weibo, or whatever it is he’s always doing on his phone. When he turns to face Chanyeol, he ends up pulling his phone charger out of the wall, and he curses.
“He’s asleep?” Chanyeol repeats, and frowns a little.
“Yeah,” Zitao says, giving up on trying to plug his charger back into the wall. “He looked really tired,” he says, working his lower lip into his mouth. “You probably shouldn’t wake him up.”
“Huh,” Chanyeol says, and gets a good look at Zitao. He’s in tight black jeans and a mesh gray tank, his snapback with the leopard print on the coffee table in front of him. A black bomber jacket is thrown too casually over the back of the couch next to him for it to be unintentional. This asshole, Chanyeol thinks, fighting the urge to roll his eyes; he’s ready to go out.
Chanyeol continues towards Kris’ room anyway, knocking lightly once once he gets there. There’s no response, not that he expected one, and he pushes the door open. Kris is sprawled over his bed on his back, shirt rucked up over his stomach. In the light from the hallway behind him, Chanyeol can see that Kris’ hair is still a little sticky from whatever product he had to put in it today, but that his face is perfectly bare, and probably deep-pore moisturized, too.
It’s calculatingly unreliable -- Chanyeol could probably wake him up, and Kris would grouse as he pushes the sleep from his eyes, but he’d still go out, first because he liked Chanyeol and second because he’d promised. His eyelids flutter, as if he knows what Chanyeol’s thinking, and that minute movement hits Chanyeol right where it counts, dredging up all the little-brother guilt Yura had spent years drilling into him.
Typical Kris, Chanyeol thinks, suddenly affectionate, and steps a little closer. Kris grunts and rolls onto his side, hand dropping loosely over the side of his bed. His phone tumbles out of his hand and buzzes when it hits the floor, as if indignant at the way it’s being treated.
Chanyeol stoops to pick it up, and then takes two careful selcas as he perches on the edge of Kris’ bed. The first one he takes from below, the flash terrifying where it illuminates his face, and he sets that one as Kris’ lock screen. The second, he puckers his lips as he twists himself so his face is right next to the patch of bare stomach, making sure to angle it so there’s a hint of Kris’ face in the picture. be more careful with your image, Kris-hyung!! ㅋㅋㅋㅋ he writes around the edge, decorating the picture with some well-placed sparkles before setting it as Kris’ background. As a last courtesy, he plugs the phone into the charger, then blows Kris a kiss from the doorway. Kris’ brow furrows as if he knows, even in sleep, that he is being teased.
==
The way this was gonna end was that Chanyeol and Zitao go to the club, Chanyeol sees some guy hitting on Zitao, he is [shocked] but can't stop thinking about it after that. Blah blah angst or something, they hook up, Chanyeol realizes he doesn't think Zitao is annoying anymore. #NothingHappens. Anyway, now Chanyeol and Zitao love each other/are the most exciting part of EXO so this concept is obsolete.
Zitao gets older and finds a new favorite
“Tao, you’re with Sehun tonight, okay?” As always, this was a non-choice disguised as a choice, as Seunghwan-hyung was already wedging the room key into the negligible space between Zitao’s fisted left hand and his cheek. Zitao’s right hand was holding his phone, on which he and Sehun were watching Chinese comedy clips Sehun laughed at only when the laugh track did, giving off the distinct impression he was much better at Chinese than he was, which was not at all. The amount of work he put into being lazy was probably the only reason he was still somehow wrangling his way out of extra Chinese lessons.
“Hyung, you’re messing up my foundation,” Zitao whined, looking up at Seunghwan-hyung from the hotel lobby bench he and Sehun were crowded on, but Seunghwan-hyung was immovable, and it only made him shake his head and say tiredly, “I’m onto you, Tao-yah.”
A few feet away, Kris was standing next to Yixing when Seunghwan-hyung came around with the keys and so he was rooming with Yixing, who gave a solemn thumbs up in response when Seunghwan-hyung gestured between the two of them, room key already on its way to middle of Yixing’s palm.
“Lucky me,” Yixing said, as Seunghwan-hyung moved on to Chanyeol and Baekhyun, refusing to give them keys until they chose different roommates. Chanyeol latched himself to Kyungsoo’s back, whose face turned impenetrable but terrifying. “It’s usually Zitao who gets to room with you.”
“All birds have to fly the coop one day,” Lu Han mused in his wise hyung voice from behind them, taking one of Kris’ earbuds to see what he was listening to. He was rooming with Minseok, who was dozing off with his eyes open behind a pillar, because Lu Han was always rooming with Minseok.
Kris snorted. “Work harder on your idioms, Lu-ge,” he told him in a tone-deaf imitation of their language teacher, and took the earbud back.
It really had been a while since he’d roomed with someone else. But it would be nice to room with Yixing again, who went to bed at reasonable times and of his own accord and wouldn’t keep saying, haha, ge, look at this, as he giggles down his Weibo feed, forgetting already Kris had said he was trying to sleep five minutes ago.
*
No one was surprised when Kris was named leader of EXO-M. The 185 centimeters certainly helped but, more importantly, he’d been duizhang to SM’s small but scrappy contingent of Chinese trainees for the past three years, if not in name then in practice. There wasn’t anyone better suited to the job.
When it came down to Sehun, he was popular enough in both China and Korea that he could’ve been in either -K or -M. But the thought of Jongin as -K’s maknae was laughable, a disaster both in terms of marketing and Jongin’s psychological well-being, so Zitao ended up -M’s maknae by default. It worked out in his favor, playing maknae to Kris’ leader. In the context of the leader/maknae relationship, Zitao’s cloying dependency suddenly seemed sweeter, less exasperating. When it came to Kris, he’d always been lucky. A company translator had been assigned to Zitao when he first arrived in South Korea but two weeks after Zitao and Kris’ first meeting, she was essentially out of a job. Kris was still in his embarrassing anime hairstyle phase then, but it didn’t matter. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and spoke Korean as well as English-not completely impeccably, but, hey, Zitao had spent at least half his time in high school English class reading comic books under his desk anyway. For Zitao, it was love at first sight. And for Kris, it was responsibility at the first ge that left the shy pout of Zitao’s mouth.
Zitao was lucky they had rap practice together, not so lucky that they were on different dance and language class schedules. He took to waiting in the hall for Kris’ class to end no matter how subtly or overtly Kris tried to tell Zitao he wasn’t doing himself any favors by it. It was difficult because Zitao, for all that his appearance might have suggested, was childish and self-centered in a way Kris knew logically should annoy him, but instead he somehow found so endearing that he could feel it wear down his, admittedly not too strong to begin with, defenses.
A few weeks before EXO’s lineup was finalized, though they didn’t know it at the time, they went on a bike ride to the river.
They were sitting on a bench by the river, their bikes resting against each other next to them. Zitao was drinking half a bubble tea next to him, the other half of which Kris had poured out into a nearby trashcan. Indulgences were okay as long as they were regulated. “Do you think you’re going to debut?” Kris asked, holding a hand up to shade his eyes against the glare of the setting sun.
Zitao stopped sucking at the tapioca at the bottom of his cup to nod. “Of course I do,” he said. Lu Han, who knew all about affection-grim parents, had been convinced of Zitao’s loveless household. “How else can you explain how much he loves attention?” he’d argued during Korean conversation practice. They were gossiping, but pretending they were talking about a drama. “I’m telling you, it’s the only reason.”
Zitao’s mom came to visit for a weekend, and ended up taking them all out for dinner.
*
Parents weekend, Lu Han had called it, even though it was over a Wednesday-Thursday and thus technically not a weekend. Even the promise of their impending official mainland debut couldn’t keep the grimace off his face nor the mild derision out of his voice as he said it. Minseok and Jongdae’s flight from Seoul was landing early Friday morning, bringing them in after a rare break at home before Chinese promotions-or as Jongdae had called it: 24/7 Chinese class, basically hell, to which Baekhyun had responded, yeah, but at least you get to spend it with Yifan, I mean, Kris-hyung, only half-joking-would begin.
Yixing had gone home to Changsha on the first flight out Tuesday night, and it’s been radio silence since then. Zitao, they received a group chat selca from the minute he’d arrived in Qingdao, his mother in the picture with him dark-haired, blurry, noticeably better-looking than him. ma is the prettiest~ like mother like son, right!!! he’d typed.
Only Kris ended up responding. He’d just talked to his own mother on the phone for an hour, a luxury of sorts too, and then had gone out for noodles afterwards with their manager-hyung. The theme of the night was to look eight centimeters shorter, average height, so he didn’t bother with washing his face or changing his sweatshirt, something old and ill-fitting that might have once belonged to Chanyeol. Lu Han was dropped back off at the hotel Thursday night by choice. They ate Kris’ leftovers together while watching the 47th episode of a wuxia drama they didn’t need to see the previous 46 episodes to understand before turning in early, taking advantage of the open rooms.
Yixing and Zitao were first back the next morning, arriving at the hotel just as Kris was done washing up. “Did you gain weight?” Lu Han asked Yixing with delight and more than just a little relief when he first saw him, right hand pinching Yixing’s side and left hand reaching out for the homemade goodies Yixing’s grandparents always sent back with him.
Zitao had a new pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head, and the scarf his mother had been wearing in the selca he’d sent out knotted haphazardly around his throat. “Hi,” he said to everyone, beaming, the effect of two days of his family’s fussing shining from his face. Kris’ room, which he’d slept in alone the night before, seemed brighter already.
==
This is obsolete for obvious reasons. WHY DID I LOVE LU HAN AND KRIS IN FIC SO MUCH? I guess because I really liked Lu Han, and Tao really liked Kris. I think the way this one was gonna end was: Zitao gets more confident and starts hanging out with other people, doesn't cling to Kris as much anymore, loves Sehun (heh) (jk) (I mean not really jk bc this is Real Life), Kris feels a little unsettled/bereft, ~muses on his mortality~ (ok jk for real), #NothingHappens but Kris and Zitao talk about it, Kris owns up that it wasn't just Zitao who needed their relationship.
★ IDOL’S DAY OFF EPISODE 1: Taemin & Kai, Best Friends With Youthful Abandon! ★
Jongin’s phone broke into the chorus of SHINee’s latest single just as Sehun knocked on the doorframe, leaning a hip against it and watching as Jongin tried to pick up the phone while zipping his duffel bag shut. The cameraman in the corner zoomed in on Sehun trying and mostly failing to stifle a laugh. It was already the third take. The first time, Sehun had spit a little in his attempt not to laugh, which had the unfortunate consequence of sending Jongin into a laughing fit so hard he was still wheezing by the second take, ruined by Baekhyun forgetting they were filming today. The producer waved a cheerful OK at them from the other corner, and Jongin almost ruined it by sighing in relief. Jongin wasn’t sure how many more times he could take hearing the same first three seconds of SHINee’s latest bubblegum electropop hit before he personally set fire to their dorm.
“What?” he grunted into the phone, finally getting the bag shut with a decisive zip.
“Yah! Did you oversleep or something, lazy? I’m downstairs!” Taemin leaned on his horn for good measure and Jongin winced, hearing the blare once over the phone and then again through the open inch of his window.
“Yeah, yeah. Keep your hair on, hyung,” Jongin said, cramming a snapback on his head. “I’m coming.”
He hung up, tucking the phone into his back pocket. Then he looked at Sehun, still in the doorway. “What?”
“Taemin-hyung’s outside,” he said, unhelpfully. Jongin almost snorted. As if Sehun would ever be that obedient; he hasn’t called Taemin ‘hyung’ in years. And then, eyes wide, “Hyunkyun-hyung’s going to be back soon. Are you sure it’s okay?” He bit his lip in mock concern and Jongin almost lost his shit-Sehun sounded remarkably unconvincing, even for SBS. He had to be the number one worst choice for this, but the PD had taken one look at Sehun and fallen head over heels in love with the idea of Sehun the cold but responsible maknae. Noonas always liked him better.
“He’s cold because he’s worried no one will take him seriously,” she’d said, eyes shining as she patted Sehun’s hand. “Abandonment issues are no joke, Jongin-sshi!” Sehun nodded solemnly at this, his mouth tugging into an exaggerated pout Jongin wanted to punch. From Taemin’s delicate snort on his other side, Jongin gathered that he wasn’t alone in that sentiment.
“Abandonment issues,” Jongin had repeated skeptically. It was their first script run-through for Idol’s Day Off, an SBS throwback to the good old days of idol reality entertainment. Day Off would allow fans an intimate look into what their favorite idols did in their spare time out of the spotlight. SBS believed that this could be accomplished by, curiously, thrusting them into the spotlight. This apparent moral contradiction seemed to bother absolutely no one at all.
He and Taemin had been approached to film a three-episode package, rounding out a fairly impressive all-star cast to kick off the debut-Lee Hyori, Yoona and Lee Seunggi, and Jung Joonyoung.
==
This was written in the euphoric aftermath of the great Taemin/Jongin Dating Scandal. This is the only one I wish I could finish and almost didn't post it here but then I needed to be honest with myself and being honest with myself means owning up to the fact that I'll never finish this u__u I might steal my own concept for another fandom, though. Anyway, the trajectory for this fic (which I also didn't want to write because there was too much (read: any) research involved): Taemin and Jongin go on an international playdate, have the most fun either of them has had in years (ha), make out in their Tokyo hotel room after a day at Tokyo Disney, go home while holding hands secretly on the plane.