it should be easy (ii)
BACK
-
Sophomore year, first semester, Chanyeol got the chance to take a class with Kris because he needed to knock out his gen-ed requirement for science and Kris needed to fulfill his science cluster before the end of junior year. They ended up in the same one-hundred-level biology course, and Chanyeol spent the first three weeks flying in the clouds because he finally got to spend time in class with Kris.
Then, he’d realized how disgustingly abysmal Kris was at biology.
Kris is almost embarrassingly terrible in anything that isn’t humanities-related, as Chanyeol’s come to understand. He’d spent the rest of the semester trying to pass his classes and half-tutoring Kris in basic biology so he could pass the course with a usable grade. Needless to say, once Chanyeol had been exposed to the half-panicked state Kris usually put himself in trying to comprehend protein synthesis and enzymes at two in the morning, the godly shine he’d associated with Kris wore off immediately.
Things kind of snapped into place after that. Their friendship, which had previously been founded on Chanyeol’s inexhaustible hero worship for Kris and Kris's toleration of it, now balanced itself evenly on mutual respect and genuine affection for each other. Chanyeol allowed himself to relax into his natural dickish teasing, and Kris in turn unwound himself enough for Chanyeol to get to know the procrastinating, stubborn mess underneath.
And then, they became roommates.
-
[lunch again. pcy’s sort-of-not-really ‘’’’dating’’’’ zitao, who makes him sit with his friends for lunch on one of the days pcy’s free from class. tao’s holding court with chinaline buds like zhou mi, fei and jia, daeryong and soryong, yixing and lu han. it’s a little weird for pcy bc he doesn’t know half these ppl, so he sticks to yixing and lu han, who are also friends with kris, and occasionally joins in the conversation when zitao or someone else engages him. kris is off dealing with remedial studies with a tutor bc he’s a goddamn senior and he still can’t pass his stupid calc i class. he fields a string of dead-faced emoji texts from kris, and focuses on his phone when kris starts whining. lu han is a Bird-eyed Motherfucker who watches him, and casually slips the idea of him joining the chinese student association’s speed dating event for them because he and zitao need to muster up people. zitao agrees eagerly, bribing him unsubtly with sexual favors if he agrees. pcy is flustered, and lu han slyly adds, “Bring Kris as well. God knows his stupid face will drag in at least another fifteen girls.”]
[kris is in the dark room, fiddling with the projector while chanyeol sits in the corner on the other side of the room, hunched over the ghostly light of his phone. it’s 9pm on a saturday night and no one else is in the building but them. they make idle conversation, but mostly chanyeol’s just scrolling through his phone and waiting to go home with kris. kris puts his last shot in the developer and asks chanyeol to fish out the prints in the pressurized tank and dry them off so he can check them in the light. chanyeol does so, squeegeeing the prints so they dry faster. one of the prints catches his eye and he takes it out with wet fingers into the film-processing area to check out. it’s a mid-shot of him, head thrown back in laughter, eyes scrunched close and teeth bared. kris comes out from the room with the rest of his prints and says casually while he’s laying them out on the drying racks, “That’s one of my favorite shots.” chanyeol works his mouth for a minute, a little gobsmacked, and is grateful that kris has his back turned to him. “I should start charging fees if you keep using me as your model,” he says at last, joking. kris snorts and turns around and plucks the print out of chanyeol’s hands and places it on the rack as well. “I don’t kill you when you stomp around at three in the morning making ramen; that’s generous enough.”]
The darkroom is eerily silent, save for the slosh of running water in the washbins. Kris is hunched over his enlarger, adjusting the focus of his projected negative, entirely immersed in his exposing, and Chanyeol sits at the other side of the room with his phone out, pale light weakly illuminating his face. He yawns, idly tapping away at the screen in his game of Candy Crush, but he looks up every so often to watch Kris at work before he gets bored again.
“Remind me why I’m sitting here in an empty building with you on a Saturday night, watching you futz with the light of a projector?” Chanyeol asks snidely, exiting out of his game and dropping his chin onto his palm.
Kris doesn’t look away from his station, grabbing for a blank gelatin sheet from under his table, and places it on his easel. He sets the light on for a few seconds, and then takes his print to the developing station after it shuts off again.
“You’re ignoring me,” Chanyeol sings, leaning back against the wall.
[pcy goes off-campus to visit his sister who’s in town with her family for a conference thing for her job. he eats dinner with her and her kid, her husband back at the hotel with some srs stomach bug issues. he gleefully plays with his four yr old niece, sits next to her and feeds her every few minutes while he and yura grill galbi and samgyeopsal. she chats him up while he’s distracted, asks him abt plans for senior year and any new relationships in his life. pcy just shrugs and mumbles smth abt thinking abt grad school. yura catches his omission abt new boos in life and zeroes in. “So there is someone? Finally?” she asks eagerly, grilling tongs clutched in mid-air over the sizzling slab of pork belly. chanyeol rolls his eyes and waves her off. “There’s only my darling Jiminnie in my heart,” he deflects, leaning into a squealing Jimin and brushes noses with her. He sits back with a satisfied grin and pretends he doesn’t feel his sister’s judging gaze on him. she sighs and jabs the tongs at the meat on the grill, flipping a nicely browned piece of galbi, and says, “Chanyeol, when are you gonna get over this whole commitment thing?” He scoffs and grabs the scissors sitting on the edge of the table grill and picks up a ready piece of galbi with his chopsticks and starts cutting it into bite-sized pieces. yura watches him, a little quieter and sadder suddenly. “Idiot. There’s nothing to be scared of. Everything turned out okay in the end, didn’t it?” Chanyeol ignores her and picks up one of the pieces of beef he’d just cut up with exaggerated motions, making a big deal of blowing on it and brings it to Jimin’s lips with a grand smile. “Chanyeol. It’s been ten years. Mom and Dad are happy.” Chanyeol looks at her finally, lips pursed. He doesn’t say anything, just waits until Yura huffs and goes back to grilling. “Fine, whatever. Don’t come crying to me when you’re forty years old and still unable to hold a relationship.”]
-
Chanyeol’s busy trying to find his other sock amidst the mess on Zitao’s floor as quietly as possible because Zitao’s the lightest sleeper he’s ever had the pleasure of sleeping with, and right now, waking him up is really not an option. He crawls slowly around on the carpet, making sure to keep the brushing of his jeans against the thicker fibers to a decibel even he with his abnormally large ears has trouble hearing in the relative silence. It’d just be a whole lot easier for him to find his goddamn sock if Zitao just did laundry like a regular person instead of dumping all of his shit on the ground when he’s done with an outfit; finding clashing neon green and purple plaid socks is actually a lot harder than Chanyeol’d anticipated. If he and Zitao hadn’t agreed to keep thing strictly between the sheets, Chanyeol would’ve already sat the sophomore down and forced him into a regular housekeeping schedule.
Alas.
He manages to find his garish sock, helpfully spotlighted by the watery moonlight filtered in through the drawn blinds on top of a pile of what looks to be choice pieces from Zitao’s gothic rock ensemble Monday. Chanyeol almost lets out a shout of triumph before he catches himself, clapping a hand over his mouth just as Zitao snorts and rolls onto his side in the bed a foot away. Still, he allows himself a congratulatory fistpump and snatches the sock to roll onto his foot, finally completing the set on his feet and freeing him to leave. He gets up quickly, and tiptoes out of Zitao’s room, keeping an eye on the sleeping figure all the while. Once he’s out of the bedroom and confirms that Zitao’s still lazily floating in dreamland, Chanyeol pulls the bedroom door shut and makes for the suite door where his shoes are haphazardly tossed off by. He pats himself down, a final check that he’s got everything, keys and phone, and slips on his shoes and quietly exits the suite.
He breathes out a sigh of relief as the door clicks shut behind him, and almost inhales a lung on the next breath in when someone tugs at the back of head.
“Holy--”
“Shush, spazz attack. Don’t go waking up the entire hall after you tried so hard to get out of Tao’s room unnoticed,” reprimands Kris, who pulls himself away from the leaning slouch against the wall on the side of Zitao’s suite door. Chanyeol bulges his eyes at him, scrunching his eyebrows in almost-hysteria, heart still furiously working through the unexpected jolt, and Kris holds up his hands in mild-mannered placation. “Alright, alright, no need to get your panties in such a twist.”
“You’re the biggest fucking asshole on this side of the equator,” Chanyeol hisses, the hairs on the back of his neck still upright from the shock. Kris nods in concession, and dutifully packs away the smug smirk on his face when Chanyeol glares at him warningly, though it still peeks out around the corners of his lips.
“Yes, yes, I apologize, so sorry, won’t happen again,” Kris says breezily, bringing out a hand to hover just above Chanyeol’s back. He waits patiently, and Chanyeol glares a second longer before minutely nodding, and the hand actually settles now, warmly palming up and down his spine. Chanyeol harrumphs, laying a hand over his heart to feel the rhythm steadily recalibrate itself, but Kris just rolls his eyes in response, still gently smoothing down the small of his back.
Chanyeol waits another few beats, until it doesn’t feel like his heart’s gonna hammer its way out of his ribcage anymore, and then shrugs off Kris's hand and starts walking towards the hallway exit. Kris follows behind, unperturbed.
“So, how was your night?” he asks casually, hands stuffed into the pockets of a pair of truly hideous patterned trousers. Chanyeol flicks his eyes obviously over to his choice of wear, and Kris rolls his eyes again. “Shut up, it’s laundry night, okay. It was either these or the pair of short shorts Amber left over from Halloween, and I didn’t really feel like freezing off my nuts tonight in five-degree weather.”
Chanyeol scoffs, pushing open the staircase door. He waits until Kris passes through to let go, and they clamber down the steps to the lobby together. “That’s like muscle tee and gym shorts weather, please. You’re such a delicate little girl.”
“Frostbite is a real legitimate concern, dick,” Kris retorts as they swivel around the corners of each level and go down another set of steps. “And don’t change the subject; how was your night?”
“Tch,” Chanyeol clicks his tongue, and tries to bite back the grimace before Kris can see, but it’s a lost cause. Kris has an irritating habit of noticing the things Chanyeol wants to hide.
“Not good, huh?” The worst thing about him noticing is that Kris gets so fucking sympathetic, and the last thing Chanyeol ever wants is for anybody to feel sorry for him whatsoever, especially when it comes to the choice in bed partners. That’s the most surefire way to raise his hackles, which Kris is already painfully aware of, but Kris also has the most annoying habit of stepping on those landmines anyway for whatever harebrained reason.
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Chanyeol says tightly, feeling his face pinch in already, a far cry from his normal happy-go-lucky persona, but it’s hard to keep his smile on when Kris gets that fucking stupid look in his eyes about the sorest topic on earth to Chanyeol.
Kris shrugs, but mercifully lets the topic go; Chanyeol’ll probably get the lecture tomorrow or a week from now when Kris finds him fucking Zitao on the couch and they have to go through the whole song-and-dance again. For now, he just knocks friendly shoulders with Chanyeol and radiates a comfortable solidity as they finally reach the last set of steps before the parking lot door exit.
Chanyeol feels like eating his earlier words about the weather as soon as they step on level ground again, shielded from the outside with just a flimsy metal door, because the miniscule breeze that’s escaping into the building is fucking freezing. He’s only dressed in the flimsy t-shirt and skinny jeans that Sehun swore made him look “deliciously leggy” because of the night’s earlier booty call, and he’s already regretting every sartorial choice he made today, right down to the pair of ratty Converses he’s got over his feet.
They’re noticeably halted right in front of the door, with Chanyeol making no move to push through into the undoubtedly dick-freezing cold, but Kris doesn’t say anything. He just snorts exasperatedly and pulls off the thick navy pullover he has on and shoves it unceremoniously over Chanyeol’s head.
“Dude!” Chanyeol squawks, hands flying up to fix the mess Kris'd just caused on his head, but Kris gives him a steely-eyed gaze. Chanyeol folds like a hastily built house of cards, eagerly accepting the sweater he’d just been forced into wearing, and obligingly tugs his arms through the sleeves. He’s not even bothering to pretend like it’s a burden because he’s already too busy luxuriating in the enveloping warmth left by Kris's lingering body heat.
“Come on,” Kris says with the same tone of exasperation he uses whenever Chanyeol does or says something stupid, but there’s also the matching fondness sliding in between his vowels that always goes along. He rounds his arm over Chanyeol’s shoulders and draws him in close, adding an extra source of heat, and leads them out of the building and onto the road back to their own dorm. Chanyeol can’t help himself; he basks in the affection.
-
[chanyeol stares off into space while in the library, laptop in front of him and textbook flipped open to the chapter he’s supposed to be reading for his assignment due in two days. his phone buzzes, and he readily reaches for it, glad for a distraction. it’s lu han reminding him abt the speed dating event and bringing kris. pcy rolls his eyes but obligingly opens up the message he has with kris and shoots off a quick text abt him going with him to the event on friday. it takes another few minutes before he gets a response and he burns through a few pages of reading before the distractedness kicks in again. when it comes back, kris answers with a smirking emoji and “u askin me out?” to which pcy can only laugh at and responds with “r u gonna put out” and matching emoji. the fluttering in his navel, he attributes to the lack of lunch he’s had, and he adds another text right after, packing up his things in the mean time. “dinner?” “yes. NO TACOS.” “spoilsport.”]
[zitao latches onto him as soon as he and kris come through the doors, nicely dressed up for the event. kris smiles and greets zitao evenly even tho zitao just turns away from him with a cold greeting, and tells pcy he’ll be sitting near the other side of the room where yixing and zhou mi are chatting. pcy waves reluctantly, secretly wanting to go with him too, but lets zitao drag him around before the event starts. they start, zhou mi takes stage as emcee, and blah blah they go around. pcy flirts with the ppl he’s paired with, puts kris out of mind, but notices him again when he’s placed behind him, backs against each in neighboring tables. he can’t help but listen, strain his ears a little to hear how kris fares. then time is up and they switch around again until pcy and kris get paired together. they laugh a little, awkward, before kris grins and gamely says let’s take this seriously. pcy snorts and props his chin up on his hand, asks whether kris is gonna seduce him or not. “I’ll be a fair judge; you lost points already with that bow tie though.” “Well, I’ll have to do my best to work my way back up then, huh?” Kris says, lips curling up in a slow-burn smile. chanyeol feels himself blink, heart stopped for a moment before heat rushes through his veins.]
[drinks with chinguline again. baekhyun’s making shifty texts to someone, and jongdae chatters on abt the awful day in lab he’s had. kyungsoo just drinks straight through his first two scotch sodas before engaging anyone in conversation. chanyeol just relaxes with a half-empty beer in hand, and plays around with the bowl of salted peanuts on the table. jongdae finally snatches the phone out of baek’s grasp and crows and shows everyone else the bordering on dirty texts on his phone to jongin before baekhyun snatches it back and shoves jongdae away. they spend a few minutes needling baekhyun for robbing the cradle even tho jongin’s only rly a yr younger than them. “I totally knew this was gonna happen, he kept giving you the biggest cow eyes ever,” Chanyeol crows, gesturing with bottle in hand at his own eyes for emphasis. baekhyun rolls his eyes and kicks him under the table. chanyeol opens his mouth to go further, but a buzz from his phone draws his attention away; jongdae takes over while kyungsoo looks on with relish. it’s a text from kris again, asking if he’s busy, and chanyeol reflexively answers back with, “drinks with the gang. what’s up?” “i wanted to grab a burrito 4 dinner nvm” “BURRITOS DONT MOVE” “ur so fucking easy” and chanyeol excuses himself, citing dinner date w/ burritos, and baekhyun perceptively catches on who he’s probably eating with and shouts after him, “You’re so fucking dick-whipped, you loser!”]
[the thing with zitao peters out, as is to be expected. it’s zitao who breaks things off, on their way to a acapella show in support of yixing and joonmyeon. he looks at chanyeol with dark eyes, just silently assesses him from a brief moment, and easily disentangles hands with pcy and brings out his phone. he shows him a shaky picture of sehun who’s eating lunch with a sleepy-looking jongin outside at one of the eating tables, and tells him he’s super cute and he wants to ask him out. pcy blinks, but pushes away the curl of protest that flickers in his mind, the all-too familiar freeze that dots the tips of his fingers, and ruffles zitao’s hair with a grin before agreeing on the cuteness.]
[spends an all-nighter frantically trying to complete a problem set a day before it’s due, and chanyeol wakes up to the gentle shake on the shoulder from kris. he’s still groggy, thinks he imagines kris's large fingers sweetly stroking back the raven’s nest he calls hair from his forehead, imagines the brush of chapped lips against his skin. but he definitely wakes up when kris pushes him off the sofa, tumbling onto the carpet ground with a grunt.]
[more conflict idefk]
[Kris's thesis show is called philophobia: the exploration of an unwillingness to fall in love. the main attraction is chanyeol; it’s chanyeol face and body in most of the photos, and the sound installation is just ambient noise that chanyeol recognizes as the bare hum he does when he’s with kris and they’re just chilling in the lounge. he’s gobsmacked. a giant photo of him sitting alone on a bench with a bouquet of flowers, expression nervous but excited, greets viewers at the door, but it’s the medium print off to the left, one of the few body shots that doesn’t show his face, that catches his attention instead. it’s a pair of hands on a bench, mid shot of two people sitting on a wooden bench. he knows those hands; can remember the actual day this photo was taken on. his own hand is curled into itself, fingers lightly tucked underneath his palm, and Kris's large hand hovering next to it, fingers outstretched, like it’s trying to reach for him.
“It’s kind of extremely creepy finding out I’m the actual subject of your thesis, you know.”
“Well, I did warn you before.”
“Shut up, you did not.”
“Did too.”
“Whatever, you’re lucky I like big gestures because I’d be calling campus security on you instead otherwise.”
Kris grins, gummy smile wide and unrepentant on his lips, and draws a mock-pouting Chanyeol into his arms. “I guess you’re my good-luck charm, then.”
KISS THE END GOODBYE]
+ ultimately, as you may have realized, there was no resolution reached in the outline. but i like to think they worked out their relationship wherein kris graduated, leaving chanyeol behind, and chanyeol learned how to live without him and how to live as just park chanyeol, before they came back together in the end, both whole, but solid enough to be with each other.
+ literally jihye and whit have been my Rock this entire exo fandom career.
+ i really /really/ wish i could've finished this.
+ fun fact (not really) i modeled kris' and chanyeol's academic career after mine. LMFAO. write what you know, right????