{exo} like a young thing (and i think i like it) // kailu
Title: like a young thing (and i think i like it)
Rating: NC-17 for brief sexual content.
Word count: 6.5k
Summary: Jongin has a problem, and it's Lu Han. Jongin/Lu Han.
like a young thing (and i think i like it)
Jongin has a problem.
"It's Lu Han's face," he tells Sehun helpfully.
"Can you be more tragically immature," Sehun scoffs, rolling his eyes.
"I am not," Jongin sneers, and pushes Sehun so far against the wall that he has to put his foot in a trash can to keep himself from falling over, which makes Joonmyun turn around and give them a look Jongin has taken to calling "If I Were Kris You Wouldn't Be Doing This."
"Help me somehow," Jongin mutters as Joonmyun herds them towards their van.
"What if I have a problem with your face," Sehun says, then hastily adds, "hyung," when their manager gets into the car after them.
"You don't understand," Jongin insists. "This is an actual problem. This is not me just --"
Which is when Sehun pointedly puts in his earbuds and turns up the volume on his thousandth replay of Justin Bieber. "You are the baby," Jongin hisses at him, but of course Sehun doesn't hear him.
"Are you fighting with maknae again?" Baekhyun slurs from where he is rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, his head resting on Kyungsoo's shoulder. "Can't you just leave him alone?"
Sehun turns to grin at him, mouthing bbuing bbuing, and Jongin socks him in the arm as hard as he knows how.
Fuck Sehun, Jongin seethes as the makeup crew puts the last touches of highlighting powder on his cheekbones. Sehun and his stupid Justin Bieber and his pointy chin and his unwillingness to hear Jongin out and his complete lack of sympathy when it came to his friends slipping into a pit of despair and just needing someone, anyone, to help them out, or at least listen to them and reassure them they aren't going crazy. So much for "We Are One," Jongin thinks. More like, we are one heartless asshole.
"Could you maybe stop furrowing your eyebrows?" the stylist asks, anxiously brushing at them with gel. "You're creasing the foundation."
"Nervous?" Lu Han pipes in, suddenly right next to Jongin and leaning over his shoulder, pressing his hair into Jongin's cheek as the stylist moves on to tweak Jongin's bangs. When Jongin turns around, it's right there, smack dab in front of him: Lu Han's face. Lu Han has his lips pressed together in that strange, tight smile he'll default to when put on the spot, the one that doesn't quite change the shape of his eyes or his cheeks, and there a few strands of his hair frizzing in the hot studio air, and Jongin wants to reach over and flatten them, but they're only going to be dancing after this, most likely multiple takes since Sehun could never position himself properly, so what would be the point --
"Last teaser after all," Lu Han says. "You're probably tired of them by now."
There's a pause, during which Lu Han waits patiently and Jongin stares. Eventually it gets too awkward, and Jongin opens his mouth to say I'm fine, but what comes out is, "You're not even that attractive."
Lu Han blinks. "What?"
But before Jongin can blurt out anything else, the cameraman claps twice to get everyone's attention. "We're ready for the first run-through," he calls out. "Kai, could you come over here?"
So it's not that Jongin runs away or anything. He's just doing his job, which happens to involve him being alone in front of a half-darkened wall dancing by himself, over there, away from any other embarrassing thing Jongin might say, away from Lu Han and Lu Han's face.
"Seriously though," Sehun says when they finally settle down to eat a late lunch of chicken, rice, and an apple each, "I don't get you. Is it that you find Lu Han hyung ugly or--"
Jongin hurriedly shoves his half-eaten apple into Sehun's mouth. When the moving speck he sees out of the corner of his eye ends up being Chanyeol a few feet away, he relaxes and takes the apple out of Sehun's mouth. He wipes it with a napkin before continuing to gnaw at it. "Don't you have any sense of discretion?" he demands, accidentally spraying Sehun with a piece of apple.
"You are doing this on purpose," Sehun says. He gestures at Jongin's face with his spoon as he wipes at his cheek. Jongin grins. "It's maknae abuse. They kick you out of the group for that, you know."
"I just don't want anyone else to overhear."
"Right," Sehun says. "So you try to talk about it when we're in a van with everyone else."
"My words were meant for your ears only," Jongin tries, then cracks up before he manages to choke out the sentence.
Sehun shakes his head at him sadly. "You give me the creeps. Why can't you have a crush like a normal person?"
Immediately, Jongin stops laughing and glares at Sehun, who is bent over his rice and shoveling it in great spoonfuls into his mouth. "I don't have a crush," Jongin tells him. When Sehun doesn't respond, Jongin pushes at Sehun's shoulder. "Hey, Oh Sehun, you take that back."
"I know, it was just a joke--" Sehun begins, but stops when he looks up from his food. He makes a few incomprehensible abrupt movements with his spoon, then puts his food down, scoots towards Jongin, and grabs hold of both of Jongin's wrists. Jongin's half-decimated apple dangles from his fingers between their faces. The whole thing is strangely awkward. Jongin looks around to make sure no one is watching them, then tries to draw his hands back. No luck.
"What," Jongin asks. Sehun's eyes are shining, almost demonic. Almost like Lu Han's, Jongin thinks, too bright and definitely up to no good. For a minute, Jongin wonders if Sehun's jealous. But, Jongin rationalizes, Sehun's probably just spent too much time with Lu Han lately.
"You have a crush," intones Sehun, pressing on the backs of Jongin's hand with his thumbs.
"Don't be ridiculous," Jongin says flatly.
"No way, you're protesting too much otherwise."
"Because I don't."
"Whatever." Sehun tosses Jongin's hands away, as if satisfied, and picks up his food again. "I get it now. You have a crush and you need advice." He pauses, and flashes Jongin his best, and thus terrible, fanservice grin. "You should join his fanclub."
It takes all of Jongin's self-restraint not to shove his apple core back into Sehun's mouth to get him to shut up. "I don't have a crush," he says. "What you have," he leans over to flick Sehun's forehead, ignoring his protests, "is a crush. I just have a problem."
"Let's hear it, then."
But in the studio with the cameramen watching the raw footage of their twenty-third teaser on a computer screen, Joonmyun and Wu Fan hovering with their arms crossed like too-concerned parents as they watch the tiny televised Kai, Chanyeol off to one side trying to get Kyungsoo to do the gorilla dance from "Nalina" with him, Baekhyun and Jongdae chatting in broken Korean with Tao about his upcoming birthday, the air of professional normalcy settled like a haze over everyone and everything, Jongin can't bring himself to say it out loud. I keep staring at Lu Han's face, because I hate it, and I can't make myself stop. It seems suddenly like, well, something a girl with a crush might confess. He glances over at where Lu Han has one casual arm hooked around Yixing's neck as he gestures at Minseok, the two of them laughing as Yixing tries to duck out of Lu Han's grasp. Lu Han's back is to him, and if forced to, Jongin would admit he breathed a sigh of relief. He furrows his brow, remembers his stylist complaining, and goes back to trying to look indifferent.
"Aish," he grumps, "I'll tell you later." Sehun snorts, his fingers reaching out to prod Jongin in the stomach, but when he sees Jongin put on his Kai face, the one with half-lidded eyes and an impersonal smile, he just shrugs.
They have a few minutes left in their lunch break, before final take, if they need it, but neither of them move. In the meditative quiet, Jongin watches Sehun and wonders how much longer they'll have time like this to themselves, to just sit and be, and watch everything happen around them instead of to them. Sehun's eyes keep darting around the studio -- to the coordinoonas picking through their rack of shared outfits, their managers huddled over iPad screens with their schedules, the rest of their bandmates weaving in and out among each other, the buzz of activity one slight degree removed from them. Jongin can tell when Sehun finally settles on something to stare at. He doesn't follow Sehun's gaze, though. He thinks he knows what's on the other end, and he's too afraid to look.
This is Jongin's problem: in late 2010, even before SME leaked a blurry, indistinct photo of seven boys in a dance studio and told a netizen to label it as M1, their dance instructor led Lu Han into one of Jongin's practice session, didn't even introduce him, told Jongin and him to run through a routine that later became the opening of their second teaser. They get through the opening steps shockingly well for two people who had never seen each other, much less danced together, but then there's that move in the beginning, the first break down of their parallel lines -- step, step, air grab, turn -- and Jongin froze when he turned and there was Lu Han, calm, intense, staring somewhere to Jongin's right.
"Jongin," their instructor said, stepping in. "The toggled reaction bit doesn't happen until you both reach down first."
"Right," Jongin muttered. "I'm sorry. Let's try it again."
They did, and this time, Jongin kept his eyes closed for the turn-around.
This is Jongin's problem: in late 2011 they had a photoshoot in preparation for their profiles, black and white with the faded blues of their jeans. In one of the sequences, the two of them are with Jongdae and Tao, piled on a makeshift bed, Jongin the last to get on, reclining against Lu Han's slight body with as little weight as possible. It was hot, his sweater stuck to his skin, Lu Han's breath tickled against his ear. "Lean forward," they told Lu Han. "A little bit more. And a little bit more. Maybe put your hand somewhere for balance. How about--"
For the rest of the photoshoot, they pushed Jongin up against Lu Han, his head against Lu Han's shoulder, their arms brushing as Lu Han turned to joke in Chinese with Yixing, their hips almost touching as Jongin stretched and Lu Han laughed, the two of them intersecting with air and lines and Sehun between them as they are shot, posed and accidentally posed. "What do you keep staring at?" Sehun asked at one point, his hand extended towards Lu Han, who was trying to draw him forward into one of those silly couple shots that would make them popular later, and Jongin felt his head snapping back, snapping away, unaware he had been looking at anything. That was how the camera caught them: Lu Han turned away from Sehun, Sehun staring at Jongin, Jongin looking intently at some spot left of Lu Han's shoulder, where Lu Han's face had been while he smiled at Sehun, the little pool of heat settling low in Jongin's stomach, so low it almost dropped to the spot against his thigh where Lu Han had touched him as Jongin reclined, hesitant, against the strong limbs of his bandmates.
This is Jongin's problem: in January SME sent them to the set of WKorea, just the three of them this time, and mostly Jongin was just happy to see Taemin and Krystal, but right at the end, the photographers had put some proofs on the wall for Jongin and Sehun to inspect, and they had printed one of Lu Han by accident. Jongin had noticed it just because it was out of place, Lu Han in his shorts while he and Sehun were both in long pants and jeans, but then it was the curve of Lu Han's jaw, distinct and unfamiliar in the shadow, the slope of Lu Han's nose perfectly catching the light, the way his chin hinted at a fullness his cheekbones sloped away from, and before he knew it five minutes had passed and the photographers were asking him what he thought and which one he'd prefer and he could only stare at them, blankly, while Sehun snickered at his side.
This is Jongin's problem: last night he stayed up until the early morning searching for pictures of Lu Han online. Most of them came with pre-debut fan speculation, and Jongin consumed them hungrily, Google-translating the slangy Chinese into incomprehensible Korean. Around four, Kyungsoo threw a pillow at his head and threatened to bring the laptop into the shower with him the next morning if Jongin didn't go to sleep right this instant, and Jongin was so tired he couldn't even make a joke about Kyungsoo's hair ending up like Chanyeol's, he just fell asleep without any of his covers on, thinking of how Lu Han's stupid lip scar always made him look like he smeared his lip gloss without a mirror.
This is Jongin's problem: two hours later he woke up from his dream in a dead bolt, his blanket rolled between his legs, the sudden heat of the dorm room pressing down on him like a hand, his breath catching in oppressive, silent gasps. He looked down, looked back up at the ceiling, then flopped back onto his bed and thought, shit. I'm really screwed.
This is the problem, Jongin thinks as Sehun and Baekhyun on both sides of him squabble over who would make a better girlfriend in SNSD, Seohyun or Taeyeon. He is nineteen and really too old for this kind of thing, and anyway it wasn't a thing, just a temporary setback. It would probably pass with time and careful nursing, but to make things worse the person he chose to confide in also happens to act like a lovesick poodle who can't get his tail to stop wagging whenever Jongin's problem asks him to go on a food run. Jongin is nineteen and soon to be the face, or maybe already is the face, of the newest boyband of one of the world's largest entertainment companies, and just last week he wasted an hour of his precious free time angrily grand jete-ing across the roof of their dorm building, because screaming I hate everything about your face, Lu Han at the top of his lungs would have killed what little voice he had. Jongin is nineteen and he doesn't have a crush, he doesn't like Lu Han, at least not anymore than any of his other bandmates, but he has a problem, and it's starting to consume his every waking, and sleeping, second.
"My life is ridiculous," Jongin suddenly says out loud.
He spends the rest of the ride dodging Chanyeol's long arms as Chanyeol leans over the first row of seats, trying to give Jongin a hug. "You're going to get us all killed," Joonmyun scolds, and Kyungsoo pulls on the waistband of Chanyeol's jeans to get him to sit down, almost pantsing him in the process.
Three days later Jongin finds himself locked in the dance studio with Lu Han.
"This has to be Sehun's fault," Jongin moans as he jiggles the handle for the twentieth futile time.
"He's a born troublemaker," Lu Han agrees. He's stretching a few feet away from Jongin, shaking out his legs and cracking the vertebrae down his spine, oddly calm. It's fine for the moment, because Jongin can keep his attention on the doorknob and not turn around. But already he can see in his head the slightly off-balance shape of Lu Han's mouth, the hollowed planes of Lu Han's cheeks as he sucks in a breath through his teeth, and if he just turns around --
"Hey." Lu Han's voice is much nearer now. Jongin can smell Lu Han's sweat, the slightly floral scent of his shampoo as well. He grabs at the handle out of pure desperation, and it's an anchor dragging him down when Lu Han eventually says, "Sehun told me you--"
"You shouldn't listen to anything Sehun says," says Jongin hastily.
"No, I mean, he said you felt awkward around me," Lu Han continues, apologetic. "I just wanted you to know, if it's something I did --" and fuck, fuck, Jongin thinks, clutching the handle like it's a prayer and maybe someone will hear it and open the door, he does not want to have this conversation with Lu Han, with anyone, really, other than Sehun. He'd been banking on this stupid problem being over in a week or two. Maybe when they get swamped with their debut, and he wouldn't have time to watch every one of their teasers on repeat, combing over each frame for a glimpse of Lu Han's face, it would be over, and he could treat Lu Han like Minseok, or Jongdae, or even Wu Fan, maybe even like a stranger.
"Jongin? Can you turn around?"
He could turn around. Just a step, step, turn -- Lu Han, I hate your face. It would be easy, though probably not painless. He might even thank Sehun for giving him this opportunity later.
The funny thing, Jongin thinks as his hand leaves the door handle, is that life for Kim Jongin has mostly been easy. Sure, trainee life was hard, the constant pressure and supervision and exhaustion, worse in 2010 when it seemed like every plan was falling through and he was being left behind to languish in the dredges of SM footnote history, but from the macro view, his life has gone the way he's wanted it to. A loving family, a flashy career, people who care about him as a person, as an asset, and as an idol. He should be happy, and he is. But there is this one thing, this one thing. Jongin has always been obsessive to begin with. You had to be, to do ballet, to get that little edge on dancing, to survive as a trainee, letting the details both wash over you and magnify into a purpose. And maybe it's just that it's always around: in the proofs of their upcoming album cover, their trailers airing on TV, the real thing nestled in the crook of Sehun's arm, laughing at something Baekhyun says. On days with more clarity, Jongin could say he's more upset with himself than with Lu Han, for obsessing so much. There is a whole world of pain and inconveniences out there for him. Lu Han's face is the least of it.
Yet the moments following Jongin turning around to Jongin looking up are some of the longest in his life. It feels like a death sentence, long-awaited but slow in coming. He thinks of all the ways he can try to get out of it, or explain, or insult Sehun's intelligence, and in the end he settles for honesty. "This is going to sound stupid," he says, "but I have this thing about your face."
There is a beat following his statement where it is perfectly silent in the studio. Jongin can see in his mind the exact expression Lu Han makes: slight widening of his eyes, open mouth, then closed again, then pressing his lips together so the chin slightly wrinkles, the awkward smile, a crinkling of the eyes. Lu Han does all that, breathes in, breathes out. "My face?" he asks, tentatively, as if sounding out the Korean words for the first time, and Jongin is still staring, and he hates himself.
"Yes."
"What about my face?"
"It's that -- I don't know, I just -- I keep staring at it."
"Wow," Lu Han breathes. Something crosses his face that Jongin has never seen close-up before. Jongin catalogs it away in his mind, wanting to see it again, wanting to wrestle it down and label it. After a while, though, it's wiped away, leaving Lu Han smiling, easy and familiar and the hyung that always pinches Sehun's cheeks. It's an expression that's mostly real but -- Jongin can't help thinking -- mostly learned, too. "That's a pretty good line," Lu Han finishes. He prods Jongin in the collarbone with a chuckle, then turns away, stretching again.
In the mirror, Jongin can only glimpse slivers of Lu Han's face, his eyes closed as he loosens his shoulders one at a time. He feels unfinished, like Lu Han is leaving him dangling. "It's not a line," Jongin insists, balling his hands into fists at his side. "I'm trying to tell you how much I hate staring at you."
Lu Han stops mid-stretch, his hand still on his shoulder. The odd expression is there again. It's the eyebrows, Jongin decides, that are different. Pinched, like the corners of Lu Hans mouth. Jongin itches to get away, to find Sehun to ask for an interpretation, to go back on the roof and be by himself and maybe hit something. Lu Han is eyeing him curiously. "Um," he says, his hand slowly moving away from his shoulder and stretched out for Jongin, like an offering. "Sorry."
The light in the studio is perfectly calibrated to bring everything into full view -- wrinkles, floppy wrists, a foot out of place, Lu Han's actually, truly unremarkable bone structure. In all honesty, Jongin thinks, he isn't that attractive. Delicate-looking, and too young, girlish when he smiles, but Jongin has seen the teasers, the stills, the magazine ads. The individual elements of Lu Han's face are fragile, but put together, moving, as it blinks and considers Jongin right now, they're so strong Jongin thinks the closest thing he feels is dread.
"What are you sorry for? It's not your fault." I'm the one who can't stop staring. But that is too much honesty, like standing on the precipice of his -- problem, and almost falling off, like the feeling of almost, almost landing a cabriole wrong and twisting an ankle, so Jongin pulls back.
Lu Han's hand dangles there. A beat, and then Lu Han draws it back. He moves behind Jongin, out of view, and Jongin has to look at the mirror to see Lu Han behind him. Two light touches on his shoulder as Lu Han positions him in front, then nothing, even though Jongin can still see Lu Han's hands perched there, waiting. Lu Han's face is in Jongin's shadow, more unreadable than Jongin has ever seen it. He shivers. A bead of sweat moves down his spine under his shirt, and something about it seems like it's Lu Han's fault.
Lu Han hums. "Do you have a girlfriend?"
"You know I don't."
"Why would I know?"
Sehun, Jongin doesn't say. Instead he just shrugs. He reaches now for Kai, the persona he practiced for the radio interviews that would inevitably ask this question. Control your expressions, he tells himself, but there's nothing there. He clears his throat again, unclenching his fists. "I'm inexperienced, that's all," he jokes. He sees his grin -- lopsided, insincere -- in the mirror, and flinches.
"It's true, you are younger."
"What about you, hyung?"
Something shifts in the studio. Jongin almost feels it lurching, switching tracks, and he can't tell what exactly it is, or where it's taking him. The air is sluggish around them, like the idyll between rains in a monsoon season, tensed between calm and storm. He's seen Lu Han like this before, seen all of them like this before, the moment before the camera rolls and Tao does a backflip, or the moment just after Kyungsoo poses for the camera and he turns to joke with Jongin but they are both hearing the sound of the shutter echoing in their ears. Lu Han looks loose, easy, but Jongin can only see half of him. He thinks, wildly, it is the other half that is important.
"Oh, well," Lu Han murmurs. "I have a few years on you, is all."
They are standing back to chest in front of the ceiling-to-floor mirror. Jongin can almost feel his shirt brushing against Lu Han's, just barely, they are close enough for that. Lu Han smiles at the Jongin in the mirror. He pokes at Jongin's cheek, and Jongin is about to grab his hand and make a joke, but then Lu Han's hand travels down. Draws a line along Jongin's chin, his neck, the curve of his shoulder from his collarbone out to the tip. Jongin swallows. The air around them pulsates with the smell of Lu Han's shampoo, his sweat, the barely perceptible sound of both of them breathing in staggered tandem. It seems too thick to take in. On the bare skin of Jongin's arm, Lu Han's touch is a hint of nails and sensation, too light even for warmth. It travels along his knuckles, clicks against his fingertip, and then follows his spine, just as Jongin's sweat had a few seconds earlier.
"You're pretty good looking too, Jongin-ah," says Lu Han. "Lots of people stare at you. Girls, mostly."
His tone is friendly, but Jongin is trying to parse him in the reflection. Solid, intense, not smiling. Jongin is reminded of the first time they met in the middle of a dance routine -- lost in it, unable to see Jongin as anything other than a collection of limbs moving with him.
"Girls stare at you too," Jongin manages.
"You're not a girl, though."
Jongin feels it like a blow to the chest. He jerks up, but Lu Han's other hand come down strong on his shoulder, keeping him there. His mind flashes, oddly, to Sehun -- how Lu Han sometimes hooks him by the waist or grabs him from behind. Jongin had laughed about Sehun being manhandled by someone so slight, but now -- he clears his throat. Lu Han's hand is somewhere at his waist, tickling his stomach. "Hyung--"
His voice catches. Lu Han moves his hand down, and Jongin is seeing it in his mind, seeing it in the mirror, seeing it in the strange, tight smile on Lu Han's face, before he actually feels it: one precise line down the front of Jongin's body, searing as it presses down, ending right past Jongin's waist.
The studio door opens behind them, so loud it almost sends Jongin bracing for impact on the floor. It's not an explosion, though, just Baekhyun, who steps in, looks around, then looks at them curiously. "Manager-hyung wanted to know where you were," he says. "Since no one has seen you guys for a while." He has his phone in one hand and a cotton pad in the other. He's clearly in the middle of taking off his makeup, and Jongin resists the urge to laugh when he sees the side Baekhyun is still working on, the eyeliner and glitter sliding off his eyelid and onto his cheek like his whole face is melting.
"Last minute dance practice," Lu Han says, with just the briefest hesitation.
"Teaching Jongin how to keep his jacket on?" Baekhyun grins.
"Something like that," Lu Han laughs.
"You better finish that before someone takes a picture," Jongin grumbles. "If your face gets out like that, our fans will be so scared I'm not sure the company will let us debut after all."
They don't look at each other as they follow Baekhyun out.
The next morning Sehun knocks shoulders with him and asks, "How'd it go?"
"Great," Jongin mumbles, glad it's early so he has an excuse for not meeting Sehun's eyes. "Fine. I'm totally over it."
Behind them in line, Lu Han is chatting with Minseok. Jongin can hear Lu Han's muffled voice going through Chinese pronunciation as Minseok complains. I can't hear the difference, Minseok is whining. Lu Han sounds far away and right next to Jongin at the same time, telescoped and contracted, settling in points along Jongin's skin -- his shoulder, his throat, his waist. His body feels tight, not quite in control. He brings his hand up, needing something to twist and finding nothing. He glances furtively at Sehun, who doesn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. Sehun is saying something. Jongin can't hear him. He is too focused on the constellation of memory spread out along his body, remembering the air thrumming around him, his skin itching, Lu Han's touch --
Suddenly Sehun's finger is at his neck, and Jongin jumps, almost dropping the iced coffee the barista hands him.
"You okay?" Sehun asks, squinting at him in concern. In the early morning light, he looks very young. Jongin wonders when he'll stop being surrounded by faces and faces and faces. Behind them Lu Han laughs. He wants to scream at Sehun, I'm not over it. I'm not okay. Help me.
"Yeah," Jongin croaks. "It's nothing. Just tired."
Jongin used to have this problem. It's hard to put it into words, but it was something like, he couldn't stop looking at Lu Han's face. It wasn't because he found Lu Han attractive. In some ways, Lu Han wasn't, and even when he was, it wasn't the kind of attractive that Jongin found magnetic, or certainly not magnetic enough to justify that one rage-filled afternoon where they were practicing the twelve member dance break in "MAMA" for the showcase and Jongin kept messing up the face-off during the final chorus and the instructor kept yelling tension, more tension, and Jongin almost screamed back, how much more tension can I possibly handle? It certainly didn't justify the one time Jongin stole Sehun's phone ("I'm your hyung," he told Sehun when Sehun bitched at him later, "it's my right and responsibility to make sure you're not texting any girls,") so he could look through all of Sehun and Lu Han's ridiculous street selcas and make witty remarks to himself, and it certainly didn't justify being locked by Sehun in a dance studio with Lu Han, which as interventions went, was a really poor idea.
Jongin used to have this problem. He can't say he doesn't have it anymore. It's more like the problem has changed, mutated into a different kind of problem.
For a week or so afterwards, Sehun brings up the incident casually. He's fishing for details, and Jongin can't blame him. Sehun's always had a fear of being left out, and Lu Han and Jongin were, respectively, the ones closest to him in EXO-M and EXO-K. Jongin doesn't tell him anything, just makes noises and pushes Sehun around, and eventually, Sehun lets the whole thing drop. Jongin stops staying up until four looking at pictures of Lu Han, Lu Han remains exactly the same, and on occasion the three of them -- him, Sehun, and Lu Han -- even eat late at night after practice together, Lu Han mocking Sehun over jajangmyeon and Jongin trying not to fall asleep into his plate of yangnyeom chicken.
And that, of course, was what Jongin wanted.
But those same weeks afterwards, Jongin will get back to his dorm room and collapse on the bed with the light off and all his clothes still on and he'll feel it -- Lu Han's touch moving from cheek to throat to waist to somewhere right between his legs, pressing down. Like clockwork, he goes back to that night after Baekhyun rescued them from the dance studio, after Lu Han had bid him a nonchalant goodbye, goes back to the way he felt when he slammed his own dorm room door behind him and locked it, hot and impatient with the memory. He raises his hand and brings it to himself, breath catching, and traces the line of his body through his clothes, trying to recreate that heat, the sharp, almost painful, crush of arousal. He bites his other hand and palms his cock, first over his pants, then bare, using his nail along the ridge and down, down the shaft until he's at the hilt, and he does it for as long as he can bear it, until he wraps his palm around his cock and jerks.
The dorm room is dark, quiet except for the light sounds of Kyungsoo's breath. Sometimes Jongin imagines Lu Han sneaking into this dorm room, one light touch on Jongin's lips, the other reaching around Jongin's waist, shadowed and unreadable like he had been even under the studio lights. Other times, he is back in the studio, and he constructs the expression Lu Han would wear if Jongin had breathed out, please, touch me. He thinks of Lu Han's hands, misleadingly soft on his shoulders, perched like a breath, a wish, and he thinks of Lu Han jerking him off as he leans against the mirror, both of them watching Jongin's face, panting, Lu Han's face, unreadable, Lu Han's hand hot and searing, precise as it jerks almost too hard, a tiny twist of the wrist as it comes up, Jongin biting down on his lips so Kyungsoo doesn't hear him, biting down on the hate as he thinks of Lu Han's smile, lips pressed together, lips at his ear, saying I have a few years on you and You're not a girl, imagining himself coming on the mirror, Lu Han holding his face up so that he watches himself do it, watches Lu Han watch him, and he --
He does this for weeks.
In April it is finally time for Beijing and their debut. In the airport, as they wait for their car, Lu Han tries to reteach Jongin and Sehun how to say 大家好 in time for their press conference. Jongin's pronunciation is dull and plodding, and it keeps making Lu Han laugh even though Jongin insists Sehun's isn't much better. "You just can't hear him," Jongin argues. "He's just so quiet you can't tell it's horrible."
"Whatever, your Chinese stage name is exactly the same as your regular one," Sehun grumbles. "Mine is stupid."
"Here, I'll say it again," Lu Han says. "One more time, okay?"
Sehun tries it, butchers it, and Jongin chortles. In return, Sehun shoves at Jongin's head and Lu Han pretends to separate them, hooking Sehun by the arm and dragging him close into a koala-hold. Jongin looks over Sehun's shoulder, where Yixing and Wu Fan are standing to one side, casually watching them. He rolls his eyes at Yixing as if to say, aren't they gross, and can't help feeling a little miffed when Yixing doesn't acknowledge it, turning instead to talk with Wu Fan.
"I can't do this," Sehun is saying. "You make it sound so easy, but you've been speaking Chinese for years."
"Poor maknae, so inexperienced," Lu Han jokes.
"I'm not your maknae," Sehun snaps.
"You and Taozi are both my maknaes. We are one, remember?"
"So teach me, hyung."
In the morning sun, all of them buoyant on nerves and anticipation, there is nothing to bring Jongin back to the dark of his room, his hands on himself, or the half-dark of the studio, Lu Han's hand on him. Sehun tries to slip out from under Lu Han's grasp, and Lu Han presses down on each of Sehun's shoulders in turn, making him bob awkwardly. The look Lu Han throws Jongin is friendly, like two older brothers getting to savor the misery of the youngest. There is nothing sexual about anything at all, and normally this is when Jongin would either sweep in to Sehun's rescue or join Lu Han in messing with him. But maybe it's the way Lu Han is holding Sehun, positioned behind him, gazing at Jongin from behind Sehun's neck. Or maybe it's just Lu Han's hands, perched on either side of Sehun, with a weight that Jongin knows well. And maybe it's the way Lu Han says inexperienced, the way Sehun answers, hyung.
Either way, it makes Jongin looks away.
As the date of their Beijing showcase drew nearer, they had gotten busier. At first Jongin had relished each hectic moment, knowing it was one step closer to doing, finally, what he had spent so many years waiting for. But after a while it began to feel like the same slow, steady grind of being a trainee, like running in the dead of summer, overexerted and overheated, the finish line wavering too much to reach.
Sometimes when he closes his eyes, Jongin sees all the events of the last two years collapsed together. It feels like being stretched too thin, being pulled in all directions until there was no more Kai, no more Jongin, no more anything except for all these moments, coalescing, splitting again, coming back together. Jongin's done it all his life, and he thinks it's the closest to enlightenment he will ever get. That, or it's the closest he'll get to dying while being still alive. He can close his eyes and he and Sehun are back at the recording studio, waiting for their lunch break to be over, watching all the tiny parts of this grand machine that is EXO move around them, weaving a web to trap and support them in equal parts.
He can close his eyes and they are lined up on stage and it is late spring of 2012 and the MC is asking Kai to say what he thought of Lu Han the first time he saw him.
He can close his eyes and they are in the dance studio back in Korea and it is 2011 and Jongin steps, steps again, grabs at nothing, turns --
He is doing the routine wrong again, he is stopping, because he looks up and sees --
He can close his eyes and his hand is reaching out, tentative, and the air is thick and hot and some strands of Lu Han's hair are frizzing, and he could smooth them down, he could touch Lu Han's cheek, he could feel Lu Han's hand hot against the back of his thigh, the searingly precise heat --
He can close his eyes and the crowd is cheering or maybe that is just the roaring of his own pulse as he grabs into the air, once, twice --
(Lu Han's hand is pressing down on him, but no, that never happened, that was all a dream, this is reality now, he is being called, and he turns --
He turns -- )
Lu Han is there, and for a second, Jongin closes his eyes.
Jongin used to have a problem. He doesn't have it anymore.
Instead, he has a dream.
He dreams at night of them back in the locked room. He dreams that this time the door is locked from both the inside and the out. He dreams of Lu Han's touch, one hot searing line down the front of his body. He dreams that this is every moment, and no moment, and the first time they have ever met, and the last time they'll ever meet. He dreams of looking up and saying, teach me, hyung. He dreams of meeting Lu Han's gaze, putting together all the elements that make up Lu Han's face, smiling Lu Han's tight-lipped smile, borrowing Lu Han's unreadable, indestructible expression. He dreams that he is ready.
Until then, he looks away.
I know you never suspected
Because I never said
Baby I was faking the whole time
-- "I Never Wanted You," David Bazan
notes:
- title from Alanis Morrisette's "Hands Clean"
- "I Never Wanted You" is actually not at all thematically related to this terrible ficlet. Sorry. If you're planning on looking it up, you should check out the Mint Julep cover, which I put on repeat as I was writing.
- when I planned this story, Lu Han was actually supposed to give Jongin a handjob in the dance studio, sigh, but then it just didn't end up that way and I had wasted too many words with Sehun and I got drunk trying to write the transition into the handjob and so … I'm really sorry. 미안헤. ;___;
- I know that Teaser 23 didn't have all the members in it, but maybe SME would have sent all twelve of them to film it anyway, because how lonely would Chen be otherwise. ;_; Also I have watched that teaser so many times and I am still.... not sure.....which members are or aren't in it. OTL
- this is for the usual suspects. I promise I'll write something less embarrassing next time.
Rating: NC-17 for brief sexual content.
Word count: 6.5k
Summary: Jongin has a problem, and it's Lu Han. Jongin/Lu Han.
like a young thing (and i think i like it)
Jongin has a problem.
"It's Lu Han's face," he tells Sehun helpfully.
"Can you be more tragically immature," Sehun scoffs, rolling his eyes.
"I am not," Jongin sneers, and pushes Sehun so far against the wall that he has to put his foot in a trash can to keep himself from falling over, which makes Joonmyun turn around and give them a look Jongin has taken to calling "If I Were Kris You Wouldn't Be Doing This."
"Help me somehow," Jongin mutters as Joonmyun herds them towards their van.
"What if I have a problem with your face," Sehun says, then hastily adds, "hyung," when their manager gets into the car after them.
"You don't understand," Jongin insists. "This is an actual problem. This is not me just --"
Which is when Sehun pointedly puts in his earbuds and turns up the volume on his thousandth replay of Justin Bieber. "You are the baby," Jongin hisses at him, but of course Sehun doesn't hear him.
"Are you fighting with maknae again?" Baekhyun slurs from where he is rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, his head resting on Kyungsoo's shoulder. "Can't you just leave him alone?"
Sehun turns to grin at him, mouthing bbuing bbuing, and Jongin socks him in the arm as hard as he knows how.
Fuck Sehun, Jongin seethes as the makeup crew puts the last touches of highlighting powder on his cheekbones. Sehun and his stupid Justin Bieber and his pointy chin and his unwillingness to hear Jongin out and his complete lack of sympathy when it came to his friends slipping into a pit of despair and just needing someone, anyone, to help them out, or at least listen to them and reassure them they aren't going crazy. So much for "We Are One," Jongin thinks. More like, we are one heartless asshole.
"Could you maybe stop furrowing your eyebrows?" the stylist asks, anxiously brushing at them with gel. "You're creasing the foundation."
"Nervous?" Lu Han pipes in, suddenly right next to Jongin and leaning over his shoulder, pressing his hair into Jongin's cheek as the stylist moves on to tweak Jongin's bangs. When Jongin turns around, it's right there, smack dab in front of him: Lu Han's face. Lu Han has his lips pressed together in that strange, tight smile he'll default to when put on the spot, the one that doesn't quite change the shape of his eyes or his cheeks, and there a few strands of his hair frizzing in the hot studio air, and Jongin wants to reach over and flatten them, but they're only going to be dancing after this, most likely multiple takes since Sehun could never position himself properly, so what would be the point --
"Last teaser after all," Lu Han says. "You're probably tired of them by now."
There's a pause, during which Lu Han waits patiently and Jongin stares. Eventually it gets too awkward, and Jongin opens his mouth to say I'm fine, but what comes out is, "You're not even that attractive."
Lu Han blinks. "What?"
But before Jongin can blurt out anything else, the cameraman claps twice to get everyone's attention. "We're ready for the first run-through," he calls out. "Kai, could you come over here?"
So it's not that Jongin runs away or anything. He's just doing his job, which happens to involve him being alone in front of a half-darkened wall dancing by himself, over there, away from any other embarrassing thing Jongin might say, away from Lu Han and Lu Han's face.
"Seriously though," Sehun says when they finally settle down to eat a late lunch of chicken, rice, and an apple each, "I don't get you. Is it that you find Lu Han hyung ugly or--"
Jongin hurriedly shoves his half-eaten apple into Sehun's mouth. When the moving speck he sees out of the corner of his eye ends up being Chanyeol a few feet away, he relaxes and takes the apple out of Sehun's mouth. He wipes it with a napkin before continuing to gnaw at it. "Don't you have any sense of discretion?" he demands, accidentally spraying Sehun with a piece of apple.
"You are doing this on purpose," Sehun says. He gestures at Jongin's face with his spoon as he wipes at his cheek. Jongin grins. "It's maknae abuse. They kick you out of the group for that, you know."
"I just don't want anyone else to overhear."
"Right," Sehun says. "So you try to talk about it when we're in a van with everyone else."
"My words were meant for your ears only," Jongin tries, then cracks up before he manages to choke out the sentence.
Sehun shakes his head at him sadly. "You give me the creeps. Why can't you have a crush like a normal person?"
Immediately, Jongin stops laughing and glares at Sehun, who is bent over his rice and shoveling it in great spoonfuls into his mouth. "I don't have a crush," Jongin tells him. When Sehun doesn't respond, Jongin pushes at Sehun's shoulder. "Hey, Oh Sehun, you take that back."
"I know, it was just a joke--" Sehun begins, but stops when he looks up from his food. He makes a few incomprehensible abrupt movements with his spoon, then puts his food down, scoots towards Jongin, and grabs hold of both of Jongin's wrists. Jongin's half-decimated apple dangles from his fingers between their faces. The whole thing is strangely awkward. Jongin looks around to make sure no one is watching them, then tries to draw his hands back. No luck.
"What," Jongin asks. Sehun's eyes are shining, almost demonic. Almost like Lu Han's, Jongin thinks, too bright and definitely up to no good. For a minute, Jongin wonders if Sehun's jealous. But, Jongin rationalizes, Sehun's probably just spent too much time with Lu Han lately.
"You have a crush," intones Sehun, pressing on the backs of Jongin's hand with his thumbs.
"Don't be ridiculous," Jongin says flatly.
"No way, you're protesting too much otherwise."
"Because I don't."
"Whatever." Sehun tosses Jongin's hands away, as if satisfied, and picks up his food again. "I get it now. You have a crush and you need advice." He pauses, and flashes Jongin his best, and thus terrible, fanservice grin. "You should join his fanclub."
It takes all of Jongin's self-restraint not to shove his apple core back into Sehun's mouth to get him to shut up. "I don't have a crush," he says. "What you have," he leans over to flick Sehun's forehead, ignoring his protests, "is a crush. I just have a problem."
"Let's hear it, then."
But in the studio with the cameramen watching the raw footage of their twenty-third teaser on a computer screen, Joonmyun and Wu Fan hovering with their arms crossed like too-concerned parents as they watch the tiny televised Kai, Chanyeol off to one side trying to get Kyungsoo to do the gorilla dance from "Nalina" with him, Baekhyun and Jongdae chatting in broken Korean with Tao about his upcoming birthday, the air of professional normalcy settled like a haze over everyone and everything, Jongin can't bring himself to say it out loud. I keep staring at Lu Han's face, because I hate it, and I can't make myself stop. It seems suddenly like, well, something a girl with a crush might confess. He glances over at where Lu Han has one casual arm hooked around Yixing's neck as he gestures at Minseok, the two of them laughing as Yixing tries to duck out of Lu Han's grasp. Lu Han's back is to him, and if forced to, Jongin would admit he breathed a sigh of relief. He furrows his brow, remembers his stylist complaining, and goes back to trying to look indifferent.
"Aish," he grumps, "I'll tell you later." Sehun snorts, his fingers reaching out to prod Jongin in the stomach, but when he sees Jongin put on his Kai face, the one with half-lidded eyes and an impersonal smile, he just shrugs.
They have a few minutes left in their lunch break, before final take, if they need it, but neither of them move. In the meditative quiet, Jongin watches Sehun and wonders how much longer they'll have time like this to themselves, to just sit and be, and watch everything happen around them instead of to them. Sehun's eyes keep darting around the studio -- to the coordinoonas picking through their rack of shared outfits, their managers huddled over iPad screens with their schedules, the rest of their bandmates weaving in and out among each other, the buzz of activity one slight degree removed from them. Jongin can tell when Sehun finally settles on something to stare at. He doesn't follow Sehun's gaze, though. He thinks he knows what's on the other end, and he's too afraid to look.
This is Jongin's problem: in late 2010, even before SME leaked a blurry, indistinct photo of seven boys in a dance studio and told a netizen to label it as M1, their dance instructor led Lu Han into one of Jongin's practice session, didn't even introduce him, told Jongin and him to run through a routine that later became the opening of their second teaser. They get through the opening steps shockingly well for two people who had never seen each other, much less danced together, but then there's that move in the beginning, the first break down of their parallel lines -- step, step, air grab, turn -- and Jongin froze when he turned and there was Lu Han, calm, intense, staring somewhere to Jongin's right.
"Jongin," their instructor said, stepping in. "The toggled reaction bit doesn't happen until you both reach down first."
"Right," Jongin muttered. "I'm sorry. Let's try it again."
They did, and this time, Jongin kept his eyes closed for the turn-around.
This is Jongin's problem: in late 2011 they had a photoshoot in preparation for their profiles, black and white with the faded blues of their jeans. In one of the sequences, the two of them are with Jongdae and Tao, piled on a makeshift bed, Jongin the last to get on, reclining against Lu Han's slight body with as little weight as possible. It was hot, his sweater stuck to his skin, Lu Han's breath tickled against his ear. "Lean forward," they told Lu Han. "A little bit more. And a little bit more. Maybe put your hand somewhere for balance. How about--"
For the rest of the photoshoot, they pushed Jongin up against Lu Han, his head against Lu Han's shoulder, their arms brushing as Lu Han turned to joke in Chinese with Yixing, their hips almost touching as Jongin stretched and Lu Han laughed, the two of them intersecting with air and lines and Sehun between them as they are shot, posed and accidentally posed. "What do you keep staring at?" Sehun asked at one point, his hand extended towards Lu Han, who was trying to draw him forward into one of those silly couple shots that would make them popular later, and Jongin felt his head snapping back, snapping away, unaware he had been looking at anything. That was how the camera caught them: Lu Han turned away from Sehun, Sehun staring at Jongin, Jongin looking intently at some spot left of Lu Han's shoulder, where Lu Han's face had been while he smiled at Sehun, the little pool of heat settling low in Jongin's stomach, so low it almost dropped to the spot against his thigh where Lu Han had touched him as Jongin reclined, hesitant, against the strong limbs of his bandmates.
This is Jongin's problem: in January SME sent them to the set of WKorea, just the three of them this time, and mostly Jongin was just happy to see Taemin and Krystal, but right at the end, the photographers had put some proofs on the wall for Jongin and Sehun to inspect, and they had printed one of Lu Han by accident. Jongin had noticed it just because it was out of place, Lu Han in his shorts while he and Sehun were both in long pants and jeans, but then it was the curve of Lu Han's jaw, distinct and unfamiliar in the shadow, the slope of Lu Han's nose perfectly catching the light, the way his chin hinted at a fullness his cheekbones sloped away from, and before he knew it five minutes had passed and the photographers were asking him what he thought and which one he'd prefer and he could only stare at them, blankly, while Sehun snickered at his side.
This is Jongin's problem: last night he stayed up until the early morning searching for pictures of Lu Han online. Most of them came with pre-debut fan speculation, and Jongin consumed them hungrily, Google-translating the slangy Chinese into incomprehensible Korean. Around four, Kyungsoo threw a pillow at his head and threatened to bring the laptop into the shower with him the next morning if Jongin didn't go to sleep right this instant, and Jongin was so tired he couldn't even make a joke about Kyungsoo's hair ending up like Chanyeol's, he just fell asleep without any of his covers on, thinking of how Lu Han's stupid lip scar always made him look like he smeared his lip gloss without a mirror.
This is Jongin's problem: two hours later he woke up from his dream in a dead bolt, his blanket rolled between his legs, the sudden heat of the dorm room pressing down on him like a hand, his breath catching in oppressive, silent gasps. He looked down, looked back up at the ceiling, then flopped back onto his bed and thought, shit. I'm really screwed.
This is the problem, Jongin thinks as Sehun and Baekhyun on both sides of him squabble over who would make a better girlfriend in SNSD, Seohyun or Taeyeon. He is nineteen and really too old for this kind of thing, and anyway it wasn't a thing, just a temporary setback. It would probably pass with time and careful nursing, but to make things worse the person he chose to confide in also happens to act like a lovesick poodle who can't get his tail to stop wagging whenever Jongin's problem asks him to go on a food run. Jongin is nineteen and soon to be the face, or maybe already is the face, of the newest boyband of one of the world's largest entertainment companies, and just last week he wasted an hour of his precious free time angrily grand jete-ing across the roof of their dorm building, because screaming I hate everything about your face, Lu Han at the top of his lungs would have killed what little voice he had. Jongin is nineteen and he doesn't have a crush, he doesn't like Lu Han, at least not anymore than any of his other bandmates, but he has a problem, and it's starting to consume his every waking, and sleeping, second.
"My life is ridiculous," Jongin suddenly says out loud.
He spends the rest of the ride dodging Chanyeol's long arms as Chanyeol leans over the first row of seats, trying to give Jongin a hug. "You're going to get us all killed," Joonmyun scolds, and Kyungsoo pulls on the waistband of Chanyeol's jeans to get him to sit down, almost pantsing him in the process.
Three days later Jongin finds himself locked in the dance studio with Lu Han.
"This has to be Sehun's fault," Jongin moans as he jiggles the handle for the twentieth futile time.
"He's a born troublemaker," Lu Han agrees. He's stretching a few feet away from Jongin, shaking out his legs and cracking the vertebrae down his spine, oddly calm. It's fine for the moment, because Jongin can keep his attention on the doorknob and not turn around. But already he can see in his head the slightly off-balance shape of Lu Han's mouth, the hollowed planes of Lu Han's cheeks as he sucks in a breath through his teeth, and if he just turns around --
"Hey." Lu Han's voice is much nearer now. Jongin can smell Lu Han's sweat, the slightly floral scent of his shampoo as well. He grabs at the handle out of pure desperation, and it's an anchor dragging him down when Lu Han eventually says, "Sehun told me you--"
"You shouldn't listen to anything Sehun says," says Jongin hastily.
"No, I mean, he said you felt awkward around me," Lu Han continues, apologetic. "I just wanted you to know, if it's something I did --" and fuck, fuck, Jongin thinks, clutching the handle like it's a prayer and maybe someone will hear it and open the door, he does not want to have this conversation with Lu Han, with anyone, really, other than Sehun. He'd been banking on this stupid problem being over in a week or two. Maybe when they get swamped with their debut, and he wouldn't have time to watch every one of their teasers on repeat, combing over each frame for a glimpse of Lu Han's face, it would be over, and he could treat Lu Han like Minseok, or Jongdae, or even Wu Fan, maybe even like a stranger.
"Jongin? Can you turn around?"
He could turn around. Just a step, step, turn -- Lu Han, I hate your face. It would be easy, though probably not painless. He might even thank Sehun for giving him this opportunity later.
The funny thing, Jongin thinks as his hand leaves the door handle, is that life for Kim Jongin has mostly been easy. Sure, trainee life was hard, the constant pressure and supervision and exhaustion, worse in 2010 when it seemed like every plan was falling through and he was being left behind to languish in the dredges of SM footnote history, but from the macro view, his life has gone the way he's wanted it to. A loving family, a flashy career, people who care about him as a person, as an asset, and as an idol. He should be happy, and he is. But there is this one thing, this one thing. Jongin has always been obsessive to begin with. You had to be, to do ballet, to get that little edge on dancing, to survive as a trainee, letting the details both wash over you and magnify into a purpose. And maybe it's just that it's always around: in the proofs of their upcoming album cover, their trailers airing on TV, the real thing nestled in the crook of Sehun's arm, laughing at something Baekhyun says. On days with more clarity, Jongin could say he's more upset with himself than with Lu Han, for obsessing so much. There is a whole world of pain and inconveniences out there for him. Lu Han's face is the least of it.
Yet the moments following Jongin turning around to Jongin looking up are some of the longest in his life. It feels like a death sentence, long-awaited but slow in coming. He thinks of all the ways he can try to get out of it, or explain, or insult Sehun's intelligence, and in the end he settles for honesty. "This is going to sound stupid," he says, "but I have this thing about your face."
There is a beat following his statement where it is perfectly silent in the studio. Jongin can see in his mind the exact expression Lu Han makes: slight widening of his eyes, open mouth, then closed again, then pressing his lips together so the chin slightly wrinkles, the awkward smile, a crinkling of the eyes. Lu Han does all that, breathes in, breathes out. "My face?" he asks, tentatively, as if sounding out the Korean words for the first time, and Jongin is still staring, and he hates himself.
"Yes."
"What about my face?"
"It's that -- I don't know, I just -- I keep staring at it."
"Wow," Lu Han breathes. Something crosses his face that Jongin has never seen close-up before. Jongin catalogs it away in his mind, wanting to see it again, wanting to wrestle it down and label it. After a while, though, it's wiped away, leaving Lu Han smiling, easy and familiar and the hyung that always pinches Sehun's cheeks. It's an expression that's mostly real but -- Jongin can't help thinking -- mostly learned, too. "That's a pretty good line," Lu Han finishes. He prods Jongin in the collarbone with a chuckle, then turns away, stretching again.
In the mirror, Jongin can only glimpse slivers of Lu Han's face, his eyes closed as he loosens his shoulders one at a time. He feels unfinished, like Lu Han is leaving him dangling. "It's not a line," Jongin insists, balling his hands into fists at his side. "I'm trying to tell you how much I hate staring at you."
Lu Han stops mid-stretch, his hand still on his shoulder. The odd expression is there again. It's the eyebrows, Jongin decides, that are different. Pinched, like the corners of Lu Hans mouth. Jongin itches to get away, to find Sehun to ask for an interpretation, to go back on the roof and be by himself and maybe hit something. Lu Han is eyeing him curiously. "Um," he says, his hand slowly moving away from his shoulder and stretched out for Jongin, like an offering. "Sorry."
The light in the studio is perfectly calibrated to bring everything into full view -- wrinkles, floppy wrists, a foot out of place, Lu Han's actually, truly unremarkable bone structure. In all honesty, Jongin thinks, he isn't that attractive. Delicate-looking, and too young, girlish when he smiles, but Jongin has seen the teasers, the stills, the magazine ads. The individual elements of Lu Han's face are fragile, but put together, moving, as it blinks and considers Jongin right now, they're so strong Jongin thinks the closest thing he feels is dread.
"What are you sorry for? It's not your fault." I'm the one who can't stop staring. But that is too much honesty, like standing on the precipice of his -- problem, and almost falling off, like the feeling of almost, almost landing a cabriole wrong and twisting an ankle, so Jongin pulls back.
Lu Han's hand dangles there. A beat, and then Lu Han draws it back. He moves behind Jongin, out of view, and Jongin has to look at the mirror to see Lu Han behind him. Two light touches on his shoulder as Lu Han positions him in front, then nothing, even though Jongin can still see Lu Han's hands perched there, waiting. Lu Han's face is in Jongin's shadow, more unreadable than Jongin has ever seen it. He shivers. A bead of sweat moves down his spine under his shirt, and something about it seems like it's Lu Han's fault.
Lu Han hums. "Do you have a girlfriend?"
"You know I don't."
"Why would I know?"
Sehun, Jongin doesn't say. Instead he just shrugs. He reaches now for Kai, the persona he practiced for the radio interviews that would inevitably ask this question. Control your expressions, he tells himself, but there's nothing there. He clears his throat again, unclenching his fists. "I'm inexperienced, that's all," he jokes. He sees his grin -- lopsided, insincere -- in the mirror, and flinches.
"It's true, you are younger."
"What about you, hyung?"
Something shifts in the studio. Jongin almost feels it lurching, switching tracks, and he can't tell what exactly it is, or where it's taking him. The air is sluggish around them, like the idyll between rains in a monsoon season, tensed between calm and storm. He's seen Lu Han like this before, seen all of them like this before, the moment before the camera rolls and Tao does a backflip, or the moment just after Kyungsoo poses for the camera and he turns to joke with Jongin but they are both hearing the sound of the shutter echoing in their ears. Lu Han looks loose, easy, but Jongin can only see half of him. He thinks, wildly, it is the other half that is important.
"Oh, well," Lu Han murmurs. "I have a few years on you, is all."
They are standing back to chest in front of the ceiling-to-floor mirror. Jongin can almost feel his shirt brushing against Lu Han's, just barely, they are close enough for that. Lu Han smiles at the Jongin in the mirror. He pokes at Jongin's cheek, and Jongin is about to grab his hand and make a joke, but then Lu Han's hand travels down. Draws a line along Jongin's chin, his neck, the curve of his shoulder from his collarbone out to the tip. Jongin swallows. The air around them pulsates with the smell of Lu Han's shampoo, his sweat, the barely perceptible sound of both of them breathing in staggered tandem. It seems too thick to take in. On the bare skin of Jongin's arm, Lu Han's touch is a hint of nails and sensation, too light even for warmth. It travels along his knuckles, clicks against his fingertip, and then follows his spine, just as Jongin's sweat had a few seconds earlier.
"You're pretty good looking too, Jongin-ah," says Lu Han. "Lots of people stare at you. Girls, mostly."
His tone is friendly, but Jongin is trying to parse him in the reflection. Solid, intense, not smiling. Jongin is reminded of the first time they met in the middle of a dance routine -- lost in it, unable to see Jongin as anything other than a collection of limbs moving with him.
"Girls stare at you too," Jongin manages.
"You're not a girl, though."
Jongin feels it like a blow to the chest. He jerks up, but Lu Han's other hand come down strong on his shoulder, keeping him there. His mind flashes, oddly, to Sehun -- how Lu Han sometimes hooks him by the waist or grabs him from behind. Jongin had laughed about Sehun being manhandled by someone so slight, but now -- he clears his throat. Lu Han's hand is somewhere at his waist, tickling his stomach. "Hyung--"
His voice catches. Lu Han moves his hand down, and Jongin is seeing it in his mind, seeing it in the mirror, seeing it in the strange, tight smile on Lu Han's face, before he actually feels it: one precise line down the front of Jongin's body, searing as it presses down, ending right past Jongin's waist.
The studio door opens behind them, so loud it almost sends Jongin bracing for impact on the floor. It's not an explosion, though, just Baekhyun, who steps in, looks around, then looks at them curiously. "Manager-hyung wanted to know where you were," he says. "Since no one has seen you guys for a while." He has his phone in one hand and a cotton pad in the other. He's clearly in the middle of taking off his makeup, and Jongin resists the urge to laugh when he sees the side Baekhyun is still working on, the eyeliner and glitter sliding off his eyelid and onto his cheek like his whole face is melting.
"Last minute dance practice," Lu Han says, with just the briefest hesitation.
"Teaching Jongin how to keep his jacket on?" Baekhyun grins.
"Something like that," Lu Han laughs.
"You better finish that before someone takes a picture," Jongin grumbles. "If your face gets out like that, our fans will be so scared I'm not sure the company will let us debut after all."
They don't look at each other as they follow Baekhyun out.
The next morning Sehun knocks shoulders with him and asks, "How'd it go?"
"Great," Jongin mumbles, glad it's early so he has an excuse for not meeting Sehun's eyes. "Fine. I'm totally over it."
Behind them in line, Lu Han is chatting with Minseok. Jongin can hear Lu Han's muffled voice going through Chinese pronunciation as Minseok complains. I can't hear the difference, Minseok is whining. Lu Han sounds far away and right next to Jongin at the same time, telescoped and contracted, settling in points along Jongin's skin -- his shoulder, his throat, his waist. His body feels tight, not quite in control. He brings his hand up, needing something to twist and finding nothing. He glances furtively at Sehun, who doesn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. Sehun is saying something. Jongin can't hear him. He is too focused on the constellation of memory spread out along his body, remembering the air thrumming around him, his skin itching, Lu Han's touch --
Suddenly Sehun's finger is at his neck, and Jongin jumps, almost dropping the iced coffee the barista hands him.
"You okay?" Sehun asks, squinting at him in concern. In the early morning light, he looks very young. Jongin wonders when he'll stop being surrounded by faces and faces and faces. Behind them Lu Han laughs. He wants to scream at Sehun, I'm not over it. I'm not okay. Help me.
"Yeah," Jongin croaks. "It's nothing. Just tired."
Jongin used to have this problem. It's hard to put it into words, but it was something like, he couldn't stop looking at Lu Han's face. It wasn't because he found Lu Han attractive. In some ways, Lu Han wasn't, and even when he was, it wasn't the kind of attractive that Jongin found magnetic, or certainly not magnetic enough to justify that one rage-filled afternoon where they were practicing the twelve member dance break in "MAMA" for the showcase and Jongin kept messing up the face-off during the final chorus and the instructor kept yelling tension, more tension, and Jongin almost screamed back, how much more tension can I possibly handle? It certainly didn't justify the one time Jongin stole Sehun's phone ("I'm your hyung," he told Sehun when Sehun bitched at him later, "it's my right and responsibility to make sure you're not texting any girls,") so he could look through all of Sehun and Lu Han's ridiculous street selcas and make witty remarks to himself, and it certainly didn't justify being locked by Sehun in a dance studio with Lu Han, which as interventions went, was a really poor idea.
Jongin used to have this problem. He can't say he doesn't have it anymore. It's more like the problem has changed, mutated into a different kind of problem.
For a week or so afterwards, Sehun brings up the incident casually. He's fishing for details, and Jongin can't blame him. Sehun's always had a fear of being left out, and Lu Han and Jongin were, respectively, the ones closest to him in EXO-M and EXO-K. Jongin doesn't tell him anything, just makes noises and pushes Sehun around, and eventually, Sehun lets the whole thing drop. Jongin stops staying up until four looking at pictures of Lu Han, Lu Han remains exactly the same, and on occasion the three of them -- him, Sehun, and Lu Han -- even eat late at night after practice together, Lu Han mocking Sehun over jajangmyeon and Jongin trying not to fall asleep into his plate of yangnyeom chicken.
And that, of course, was what Jongin wanted.
But those same weeks afterwards, Jongin will get back to his dorm room and collapse on the bed with the light off and all his clothes still on and he'll feel it -- Lu Han's touch moving from cheek to throat to waist to somewhere right between his legs, pressing down. Like clockwork, he goes back to that night after Baekhyun rescued them from the dance studio, after Lu Han had bid him a nonchalant goodbye, goes back to the way he felt when he slammed his own dorm room door behind him and locked it, hot and impatient with the memory. He raises his hand and brings it to himself, breath catching, and traces the line of his body through his clothes, trying to recreate that heat, the sharp, almost painful, crush of arousal. He bites his other hand and palms his cock, first over his pants, then bare, using his nail along the ridge and down, down the shaft until he's at the hilt, and he does it for as long as he can bear it, until he wraps his palm around his cock and jerks.
The dorm room is dark, quiet except for the light sounds of Kyungsoo's breath. Sometimes Jongin imagines Lu Han sneaking into this dorm room, one light touch on Jongin's lips, the other reaching around Jongin's waist, shadowed and unreadable like he had been even under the studio lights. Other times, he is back in the studio, and he constructs the expression Lu Han would wear if Jongin had breathed out, please, touch me. He thinks of Lu Han's hands, misleadingly soft on his shoulders, perched like a breath, a wish, and he thinks of Lu Han jerking him off as he leans against the mirror, both of them watching Jongin's face, panting, Lu Han's face, unreadable, Lu Han's hand hot and searing, precise as it jerks almost too hard, a tiny twist of the wrist as it comes up, Jongin biting down on his lips so Kyungsoo doesn't hear him, biting down on the hate as he thinks of Lu Han's smile, lips pressed together, lips at his ear, saying I have a few years on you and You're not a girl, imagining himself coming on the mirror, Lu Han holding his face up so that he watches himself do it, watches Lu Han watch him, and he --
He does this for weeks.
In April it is finally time for Beijing and their debut. In the airport, as they wait for their car, Lu Han tries to reteach Jongin and Sehun how to say 大家好 in time for their press conference. Jongin's pronunciation is dull and plodding, and it keeps making Lu Han laugh even though Jongin insists Sehun's isn't much better. "You just can't hear him," Jongin argues. "He's just so quiet you can't tell it's horrible."
"Whatever, your Chinese stage name is exactly the same as your regular one," Sehun grumbles. "Mine is stupid."
"Here, I'll say it again," Lu Han says. "One more time, okay?"
Sehun tries it, butchers it, and Jongin chortles. In return, Sehun shoves at Jongin's head and Lu Han pretends to separate them, hooking Sehun by the arm and dragging him close into a koala-hold. Jongin looks over Sehun's shoulder, where Yixing and Wu Fan are standing to one side, casually watching them. He rolls his eyes at Yixing as if to say, aren't they gross, and can't help feeling a little miffed when Yixing doesn't acknowledge it, turning instead to talk with Wu Fan.
"I can't do this," Sehun is saying. "You make it sound so easy, but you've been speaking Chinese for years."
"Poor maknae, so inexperienced," Lu Han jokes.
"I'm not your maknae," Sehun snaps.
"You and Taozi are both my maknaes. We are one, remember?"
"So teach me, hyung."
In the morning sun, all of them buoyant on nerves and anticipation, there is nothing to bring Jongin back to the dark of his room, his hands on himself, or the half-dark of the studio, Lu Han's hand on him. Sehun tries to slip out from under Lu Han's grasp, and Lu Han presses down on each of Sehun's shoulders in turn, making him bob awkwardly. The look Lu Han throws Jongin is friendly, like two older brothers getting to savor the misery of the youngest. There is nothing sexual about anything at all, and normally this is when Jongin would either sweep in to Sehun's rescue or join Lu Han in messing with him. But maybe it's the way Lu Han is holding Sehun, positioned behind him, gazing at Jongin from behind Sehun's neck. Or maybe it's just Lu Han's hands, perched on either side of Sehun, with a weight that Jongin knows well. And maybe it's the way Lu Han says inexperienced, the way Sehun answers, hyung.
Either way, it makes Jongin looks away.
As the date of their Beijing showcase drew nearer, they had gotten busier. At first Jongin had relished each hectic moment, knowing it was one step closer to doing, finally, what he had spent so many years waiting for. But after a while it began to feel like the same slow, steady grind of being a trainee, like running in the dead of summer, overexerted and overheated, the finish line wavering too much to reach.
Sometimes when he closes his eyes, Jongin sees all the events of the last two years collapsed together. It feels like being stretched too thin, being pulled in all directions until there was no more Kai, no more Jongin, no more anything except for all these moments, coalescing, splitting again, coming back together. Jongin's done it all his life, and he thinks it's the closest to enlightenment he will ever get. That, or it's the closest he'll get to dying while being still alive. He can close his eyes and he and Sehun are back at the recording studio, waiting for their lunch break to be over, watching all the tiny parts of this grand machine that is EXO move around them, weaving a web to trap and support them in equal parts.
He can close his eyes and they are lined up on stage and it is late spring of 2012 and the MC is asking Kai to say what he thought of Lu Han the first time he saw him.
He can close his eyes and they are in the dance studio back in Korea and it is 2011 and Jongin steps, steps again, grabs at nothing, turns --
He is doing the routine wrong again, he is stopping, because he looks up and sees --
He can close his eyes and his hand is reaching out, tentative, and the air is thick and hot and some strands of Lu Han's hair are frizzing, and he could smooth them down, he could touch Lu Han's cheek, he could feel Lu Han's hand hot against the back of his thigh, the searingly precise heat --
He can close his eyes and the crowd is cheering or maybe that is just the roaring of his own pulse as he grabs into the air, once, twice --
(Lu Han's hand is pressing down on him, but no, that never happened, that was all a dream, this is reality now, he is being called, and he turns --
He turns -- )
Lu Han is there, and for a second, Jongin closes his eyes.
Jongin used to have a problem. He doesn't have it anymore.
Instead, he has a dream.
He dreams at night of them back in the locked room. He dreams that this time the door is locked from both the inside and the out. He dreams of Lu Han's touch, one hot searing line down the front of his body. He dreams that this is every moment, and no moment, and the first time they have ever met, and the last time they'll ever meet. He dreams of looking up and saying, teach me, hyung. He dreams of meeting Lu Han's gaze, putting together all the elements that make up Lu Han's face, smiling Lu Han's tight-lipped smile, borrowing Lu Han's unreadable, indestructible expression. He dreams that he is ready.
Until then, he looks away.
I know you never suspected
Because I never said
Baby I was faking the whole time
-- "I Never Wanted You," David Bazan
notes:
- title from Alanis Morrisette's "Hands Clean"
- "I Never Wanted You" is actually not at all thematically related to this terrible ficlet. Sorry. If you're planning on looking it up, you should check out the Mint Julep cover, which I put on repeat as I was writing.
- when I planned this story, Lu Han was actually supposed to give Jongin a handjob in the dance studio, sigh, but then it just didn't end up that way and I had wasted too many words with Sehun and I got drunk trying to write the transition into the handjob and so … I'm really sorry. 미안헤. ;___;
- I know that Teaser 23 didn't have all the members in it, but maybe SME would have sent all twelve of them to film it anyway, because how lonely would Chen be otherwise. ;_; Also I have watched that teaser so many times and I am still.... not sure.....which members are or aren't in it. OTL
- this is for the usual suspects. I promise I'll write something less embarrassing next time.