Japanese Models with Awful Timing 1/3
Title: Japanese Models with Awful Timing
Pairing: Chentao
Rating: R
Length: Chaptered
Summary: Zitao is an ass man and Jongdae speaks lovely Korean. This causes problems.
Let's start with Chentao. Later we can talk about how this plot came to be or how ashamed of it I am or how this is the second instalment of a sort of Tao x Everyone anthology. But, for now: Chentao.
- - - - -
Jongdae was more focused on wrestling the microphone out of Zitao’s hands than on listening to the host’s questions, meaning that instead the younger boy was forced to pay attention as he distractedly loosened his grip around their shared microphone.
“He asked you if Yixing hyung acts any different in the dorms.”
Jongdae gave a quick nod and smile as he answered in smooth Korean. He swallowed nervously as their interpreter translated for the host.
“It sounds so much scarier in Chinese,” he said quietly. Zitao smirked.
“Really? She’s saying exactly what you said.”
Jongdae nodded numbly, continuing to listen.
“…I think,” Zitao added after a moment. Jongdae’s face broke into a smile.
“We’ve both got to work harder on languages, haven’t we?”
Zitao bowed his head with a weak smile.
- - -
“Taooo!”
Zitao looked up from his mango juice box to Jongdae, seated at the dining room table of their dorm with a notebook, three textbooks and two Korean-Chinese dictionaries spread out around him.
“What’s wrong?”
Zitao sat down beside the obviously distressed Jongdae, who pressed his fingers against his temples and sighed.
“This paragraph, right. I completely understand what it means, and I can re-write every character,” Jongdae explained, pointing to his approximate pen marks in the notebook in front of him. “And I’ve mostly got the tones down, but the pronunciation…”
Zitao placed his elbow on the table and leaned his head against his hand.
“But Hyung is usually really good with pronunciation, no?”
“Yeah, but-wait, thank you.”
“No problem.”
Jongdae gave a nervous chuckle and continued. “But, most of these characters are new to me. I haven’t really heard them spoken before.”
Zitao reached for the textbook that held the elusive paragraph. Slowly, he read the paragraph aloud, pausing for Jongdae to try out certain sounds and write down notes to himself.
“Wait, even I don’t know how to say this one,” Zitao said, holding the textbook at arm’s length with his head cocked to the side.
“Too advanced for you?” Jongdae stuck his tongue out.
“Hyung~! No, but I don’t know how you say this properly. I could only tell you how to say it in Shandong dialect, and that wouldn’t work."
“Oh.” Jongdae’s expression fell.
“Sorry. You should probably ask Lu Han.”
“But Tao~”
“You can ‘Tao~’ me all you want, but I still speak in Shandong dialect! Why don’t you get yourself an audio tape or something?”
Jongdae’s expression turned sharp, and Zitao braced himself for impending Jongdae Lip.
“Did you hear yourself say that? Do you even pay attention to your Korean pronunciation? Who are you to tell me what to do about pronunciation?”
If Jongdae was sensitive about his struggles with Mandarin, then Zitao was having twice as much difficulty dealing with a jab at his Korean, dealt to him by a beloved older brother. He scratched the underside of his eye to ward off a tear.
“Sorry, Tao. Hyung just got worked up. Go along, I’ll get help from Lu Han.”
Zitao got up from his chair and turned to go throw out his juice box. Jongdae patted him on the thigh as he left.
- - -
Nineteen, prone to mood swings and eager to learn, Zitao was already at his computer half an hour later searching for new Korean dramas to help with his pronunciation. Ten minutes into the third episode of a sci-fi romance drama, he was stuck rewinding one part several times, trying to clearly make out the Korean words corresponding to the Mandarin subtitles. Frustrated, he brought the cursor back for the umpteenth time and clicked the volume button on his laptop. A thought kept occurring to him with unsettling frequency:
Jongdae’s Korean is much clearer than this.
Removing his earphones from one ear, he listened for Jongdae’s linguistic endeavours in the dining room; he was practicing with Lu Han, who was giggling as he helped him recite a tongue twister.
Sighing, Zitao placed his earphones back in his ears and opened the YinYueTai homepage.
That awesome moment when your group is famous enough for you to be able to find clips on the Internet of your fellow member speaking Korean.
- - -
Later that night, in the comfort of his own dorm and room, Zitao had landed on a fan-made compilation of all of Jongdae’s moments during interviews, with bits from their translator to boot. He let Jongdae’s voice become the soundtrack to the online game he’d been meaning to try ever since they got back to Korea. He finished typing up a final e-mail before deciding to call it a night, and set out to exit all his Internet windows to the sound of Jongdae’s nervous laughter in the clip.
Game window number one.
Game window number two.
Game window number three.
Weibo window.
Game popup window number one.
Game popup window num-oh god who would ever fall for that?
Game popup window num-ok there is no way that is a real singles ad.
Game popup window num-date a Japanese girl, no thank-
…
…
holy shit that is a nice ass.
“I’ve been studying Chinese for about six months…”
Zitao flushed at the sight of a close-up on a Japanese model’s bikini-clad behind. Admittedly it had been a while since he had last jerked off. Zitao cocked an ear towards their manager’s room; he was busy making a phone call. The coast was clear. Zitao pushed the laptop off his thighs and undid the button on his jeans.
“But for next time I hope to speak better Chinese.”
Dammit, Jongdae!
Zitao shut his laptop, perhaps a bit too forcefully, half-tossed it to the other side of his bed, and got back to his pants.
- - -
Zitao sat in his swivel chair on set for an interview on a Korean television show, sulking in Jongdae’s general direction in a way he never would have even thought possible, sitting right beside him once again. He had never imagined what Jongdae’s nervous chuckle would trigger inside his mind. He hiccupped as his head was filled with more women’s buttocks in bikinis.
“I’ve been studying Chinese for about six months…”
No. Stop.
Zitao winced at the predictable sentences, and how easily they reminded him of the night before. Now, even without the follow-up translation in Mandarin, Jongdae’s words clicked in place in Zitao’s Korean vocabulary, and stirred vivid images in his head. He was sure something about this way of learning Korean was problematic-
“But for next time I hope to speak better Chinese.”
Gah, stop plugging in the same sentences!
Zitao was so eager to leave the set and get out of earshot from Jongdae and speak Mandarin or maybe listen to some English hip hop and then do yoga to calm his mind and then-
He stumbled on the base of his swivel chair, catching himself with a quick step backward under Jongdae’s panicked gaze.
“Tao, are you okay?”
Zitao nodded but avoided his eyes. Jongdae steadied him, perhaps unnecessarily since he had already regained his balance, with a hand on his back. Zitao closed his eyes, mentally informing the Japanese model residing in his mind that right now she was being quite a nuisance to the whole brotherhood dynamic.
- - -
Zitao was sitting on a bench on a hill in the park, far enough from the walking path below that he was completely protected from the potential site of a female posterior within critical range. He had brought his PSP with him, a trusty device that, because he had download videos of Jongdae beforehand and set up new popup blockers, meant he was guaranteed a fruitful study period.
He spent that afternoon mouthing Jongdae’s words with a furrowed brow and giggling along with the audience at his snide comments. When Jongdae’s words grew sparser in the audio clip, Zitao’s crotch chimed in that it was getting bored. Zitao’s mind, tired of Korean, added that it was about time he got back to thinking about that glorious Japanese ass.
No must focus on Jongdae must learn from Jongdae must become awesome at Korean and have boss pronunciation.
Zitao occupied himself by surfing his weibo, repeating the words Jongdae said and chanting to himself the reasons why those words must win over ass in his head.
- - -
The next morning Zitao had 86 messages on his weibo.
Panda is practicing Korean <3
Is this how you practice Korean Tao lol
Chen has pretty Korean right >.< Zitao jiayou!
Looool Tao Ge so cute <3 Listening to Chen’s voice xD
Tao why did you post this? Do you want your fans to practice Korean with you?
Cheeeen <3
Does Zitao Ge fall asleep listening to this >.<
Panda Tao must love his Gege very much right?
Zitao scratched his head in total confusion.
What the…
His eyes widened, hands gripping his laptop as he found his answer: He had accidentally posted a video of Jongdae he had downloaded onto his weibo.
Fuck.
“Duizhaaaaaaaaang! Help!”
- - -
After the embarrassment had boiled over, Zitao sat at his laptop several days later, somehow still keen on perfecting his Korean. He had settled on watching another drama, but had completely missed the “horror” tag and paid for his inattention towards the end of the first episode, when the heroine found herself surrounded by extremely realistic-looking forest spirits.
That had ended fast.
He stared once again at the YinYueTai homepage, thinking of what keywords to enter.
Not Jongdae.
Not Minseok, given how complicated things had gotten with Jongdae, and how quickly.
No one from Exo K.
No SM sunbaes.
No one he would feasibly ever ever ever meet face to face.
Zitao sighed. Maybe Lu Han had some tapes with old Korean teachers acting overenthusiastic about Korean vocabulary.
- - -
It turned out Lu Han had given away all his tapes a long time ago, although Yixing was able to find him several audio files he had stored on his computer. Zitao fell asleep sometime during the Asking for Directions chapter (no harm in reviewing the basics, right?) in a somewhat grumpy mood, annoyed that he didn’t have a pretty voice like Jongdae’s to explain to him how to get to the Seoul Hospital instead.
Jongdae really wasn’t the lead vocal of Exo M for nothing, after all.
- - -
Zitao was playing another online game, this time on Wu Fan’ mini laptop, as they waited in one of the airport restaurants for lunch to be served.
“Baozi, how do you say this in Korean?” Lu Han asked Minseok as he pointed out an item on the menu. Before Minseok could articulate an answer, Lu Han moved to the next item. “And this one? What about this one? And here~?”
Minseok wiggled his head. “Well, seeing as this one here is the restaurant name, you would just say it with a Korean accent, no?”
Lu Han giggled and gave it a try.
“Wait, Lu Han Ge, do you really want to know how to say these in Korean?” asked Jongdae.
“Jongdae, they’re just playing,” Yixing said, touching his shoulder.
“Chen Chen’s just looking out for Lu Han,” said Wu Fan with a smile, leaning his cheek on his fist. “Cute, right?”
Yixing chuckled, nodding.
Meanwhile, their youngest member was making dangerous parallels between Jongdae-lost-in-Chinese-interviews-as-compiled-into-fanvideos and the current Jongdae situation, and how it all related back to bikinis. His fingers tightened around the mini laptop base, somehow dwarfing it in his hands.
“Easy, easy,” Wu Fan said, tapping Zitao’s wrist to remind him that he was not in fact the owner of said mini laptop and that it was thus his responsibility to keep it intact and ready for subsequent Duizhang-type activities.
The sound of a plate of food being set on their table brought Zitao back to the real world for a second, as he hurried to put the mini laptop away to eat. He quickly exited several windows, before realizing that there it was, the dreaded popup.
He left the window open, the one that just covered the popup message, leaving only the ends of a head of black hair blowing in the summer wind showing from behind it.
That was more than enough for Zitao. He firmly closed the computer (too firmly, going by Wu Fan’ anxious noise) and ran out of the restaurant. He was met with the men’s washroom sign, and froze, realizing what he’d been about to do.
IDOLS DO NOT MASTURBATE IN AIRPORT WASHROOMS, GODDAMNIT.
Zitao mentally stomped his foot in frustration.
He ran back to the restaurant, and was met at the opening with Wu Fan, who was half taking in Zitao’s appearance, trying to puzzle out just what was going on, and half attempting to stare down each and every fan who had decided to turn this opportunity into a miniature photo-shoot. Wu Fan’ expression of somewhat suppressed panic and confusion mirrored how Zitao felt, and at that moment he wanted nothing more than to run into the arms of his beloved duizhang and just weep away all of his sexual frustration.
“You…ready to eat?” Wu Fan tried.
Zitao thought back to the noodle soup he had ordered and deemed it to be a very effective distraction from his current emotions. He walked back to his seat and gave a weak chuckle as an explanation to his band mates, who were too busy stuffing their mouths to analyze the whole situation, and got down to business on his own meal, already placed in his spot and getting slightly cold. He shoved mouthful after mouthful of noodles down his throat, bowl almost around his face in his effort to calm both his physical and sexual hunger.
He was glad Jongdae was busy with his own food because if one more nervous word of Korean had escaped him Zitao would have started shouting nonsense right then and there about the need for linguistic segregation and the evil of formulaic interview questions and the trouble with Japanese models who just kept sticking their butts where they didn’t belong.
In the plane, Zitao scowled down at his PSP, even thought it wasn’t its fault that he could no longer find solace in his downloaded episodes of My Girlfriend is a Gumiho given that it was in a very, very dangerous language. He placed himself between Yixing and Lu Han and let himself be soothed by the sound of their (beautifully Mandarin) conversation, drifting slowly to sleep.
- - -
Seated on his hotel bed with a dopey smile on his face, Zitao swung his feet back in forth in mid-air as he watched Minseok unpack. For the first time in a while, Zitao was not feeling horny, and it felt fucking amazing.
He bobbed his head to his inner ‘Not horny not horny~’ chant as he answered the cellphone buzzing in his pocket.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Wu Fan, could you and Minseok come down for a quick meetup?”
Zitao quickly asked his roommate before telling Wu Fan yes and asking him for the room number.
“Oh, right. Wait, Manager wrote it down for me. I’ve got it here somewhere…”
Zitao grinned as he waited for Wu Fan to find the room number, all too pleased with himself at how much more comfortable he felt today about dealing with Jongdae.
Yeah, that’s right. Bring it on, Jongdae-
Zitao recoiled at the sudden onslaught of blood towards his crotch.
“Here it is. Okay, room 108. It’s down the hall from the dining hall, near the bathrooms?”
Zitao gave a noise to indicate he’d heard, eyes popping out of his head as he tried to puzzle why this bout of horniness was different from the all others.
“We’re just going to go over schedules again, there’s changes and more interviews now, so just to prepare ourselves mentally, really.”
Wait.
Usually his train of thought went:
1. Jongdae
2. Korean
3. Mustnotmustnotmustnotmakeconnection
4. Oops too late bikini butts
5. Horny
But, this time.
Could he have actually.
Skipped steps 2 to 4?
Had he become turned on by the mere thought of Jongdae?
“Are you guys done unpacking yet?”
Oh god.
It was true.
He had become turned on by the mere thought of Jongdae.
“I’m done, Minseok ge’s still putting stuff away in drawers,” Zitao said weakly, running a hand through his hair.
Jongdae was actually truthfully unavoidably utterly directly turning him on.
“Okay, good, see you in a bit-Zitao, you okay?”
Zitao’s moan of frustration resonated through the room and his phone, as he fell backwards onto his bed, hand still in his hair and legs bouncing up under the force of his fall of desperation. In front of him, Minseok echoed Wu Fan’ question.
“I…I…yeah, I’m fine.”
Zitao shut his eyes and repeatedly rammed the back of his head into the bed.
Juuust fine.
- - - - -
Part 2
Part 3
Pairing: Chentao
Rating: R
Length: Chaptered
Summary: Zitao is an ass man and Jongdae speaks lovely Korean. This causes problems.
Let's start with Chentao. Later we can talk about how this plot came to be or how ashamed of it I am or how this is the second instalment of a sort of Tao x Everyone anthology. But, for now: Chentao.
- - - - -
Jongdae was more focused on wrestling the microphone out of Zitao’s hands than on listening to the host’s questions, meaning that instead the younger boy was forced to pay attention as he distractedly loosened his grip around their shared microphone.
“He asked you if Yixing hyung acts any different in the dorms.”
Jongdae gave a quick nod and smile as he answered in smooth Korean. He swallowed nervously as their interpreter translated for the host.
“It sounds so much scarier in Chinese,” he said quietly. Zitao smirked.
“Really? She’s saying exactly what you said.”
Jongdae nodded numbly, continuing to listen.
“…I think,” Zitao added after a moment. Jongdae’s face broke into a smile.
“We’ve both got to work harder on languages, haven’t we?”
Zitao bowed his head with a weak smile.
- - -
“Taooo!”
Zitao looked up from his mango juice box to Jongdae, seated at the dining room table of their dorm with a notebook, three textbooks and two Korean-Chinese dictionaries spread out around him.
“What’s wrong?”
Zitao sat down beside the obviously distressed Jongdae, who pressed his fingers against his temples and sighed.
“This paragraph, right. I completely understand what it means, and I can re-write every character,” Jongdae explained, pointing to his approximate pen marks in the notebook in front of him. “And I’ve mostly got the tones down, but the pronunciation…”
Zitao placed his elbow on the table and leaned his head against his hand.
“But Hyung is usually really good with pronunciation, no?”
“Yeah, but-wait, thank you.”
“No problem.”
Jongdae gave a nervous chuckle and continued. “But, most of these characters are new to me. I haven’t really heard them spoken before.”
Zitao reached for the textbook that held the elusive paragraph. Slowly, he read the paragraph aloud, pausing for Jongdae to try out certain sounds and write down notes to himself.
“Wait, even I don’t know how to say this one,” Zitao said, holding the textbook at arm’s length with his head cocked to the side.
“Too advanced for you?” Jongdae stuck his tongue out.
“Hyung~! No, but I don’t know how you say this properly. I could only tell you how to say it in Shandong dialect, and that wouldn’t work."
“Oh.” Jongdae’s expression fell.
“Sorry. You should probably ask Lu Han.”
“But Tao~”
“You can ‘Tao~’ me all you want, but I still speak in Shandong dialect! Why don’t you get yourself an audio tape or something?”
Jongdae’s expression turned sharp, and Zitao braced himself for impending Jongdae Lip.
“Did you hear yourself say that? Do you even pay attention to your Korean pronunciation? Who are you to tell me what to do about pronunciation?”
If Jongdae was sensitive about his struggles with Mandarin, then Zitao was having twice as much difficulty dealing with a jab at his Korean, dealt to him by a beloved older brother. He scratched the underside of his eye to ward off a tear.
“Sorry, Tao. Hyung just got worked up. Go along, I’ll get help from Lu Han.”
Zitao got up from his chair and turned to go throw out his juice box. Jongdae patted him on the thigh as he left.
- - -
Nineteen, prone to mood swings and eager to learn, Zitao was already at his computer half an hour later searching for new Korean dramas to help with his pronunciation. Ten minutes into the third episode of a sci-fi romance drama, he was stuck rewinding one part several times, trying to clearly make out the Korean words corresponding to the Mandarin subtitles. Frustrated, he brought the cursor back for the umpteenth time and clicked the volume button on his laptop. A thought kept occurring to him with unsettling frequency:
Jongdae’s Korean is much clearer than this.
Removing his earphones from one ear, he listened for Jongdae’s linguistic endeavours in the dining room; he was practicing with Lu Han, who was giggling as he helped him recite a tongue twister.
Sighing, Zitao placed his earphones back in his ears and opened the YinYueTai homepage.
That awesome moment when your group is famous enough for you to be able to find clips on the Internet of your fellow member speaking Korean.
- - -
Later that night, in the comfort of his own dorm and room, Zitao had landed on a fan-made compilation of all of Jongdae’s moments during interviews, with bits from their translator to boot. He let Jongdae’s voice become the soundtrack to the online game he’d been meaning to try ever since they got back to Korea. He finished typing up a final e-mail before deciding to call it a night, and set out to exit all his Internet windows to the sound of Jongdae’s nervous laughter in the clip.
Game window number one.
Game window number two.
Game window number three.
Weibo window.
Game popup window number one.
Game popup window num-oh god who would ever fall for that?
Game popup window num-ok there is no way that is a real singles ad.
Game popup window num-date a Japanese girl, no thank-
…
…
holy shit that is a nice ass.
“I’ve been studying Chinese for about six months…”
Zitao flushed at the sight of a close-up on a Japanese model’s bikini-clad behind. Admittedly it had been a while since he had last jerked off. Zitao cocked an ear towards their manager’s room; he was busy making a phone call. The coast was clear. Zitao pushed the laptop off his thighs and undid the button on his jeans.
“But for next time I hope to speak better Chinese.”
Dammit, Jongdae!
Zitao shut his laptop, perhaps a bit too forcefully, half-tossed it to the other side of his bed, and got back to his pants.
- - -
Zitao sat in his swivel chair on set for an interview on a Korean television show, sulking in Jongdae’s general direction in a way he never would have even thought possible, sitting right beside him once again. He had never imagined what Jongdae’s nervous chuckle would trigger inside his mind. He hiccupped as his head was filled with more women’s buttocks in bikinis.
“I’ve been studying Chinese for about six months…”
No. Stop.
Zitao winced at the predictable sentences, and how easily they reminded him of the night before. Now, even without the follow-up translation in Mandarin, Jongdae’s words clicked in place in Zitao’s Korean vocabulary, and stirred vivid images in his head. He was sure something about this way of learning Korean was problematic-
“But for next time I hope to speak better Chinese.”
Gah, stop plugging in the same sentences!
Zitao was so eager to leave the set and get out of earshot from Jongdae and speak Mandarin or maybe listen to some English hip hop and then do yoga to calm his mind and then-
He stumbled on the base of his swivel chair, catching himself with a quick step backward under Jongdae’s panicked gaze.
“Tao, are you okay?”
Zitao nodded but avoided his eyes. Jongdae steadied him, perhaps unnecessarily since he had already regained his balance, with a hand on his back. Zitao closed his eyes, mentally informing the Japanese model residing in his mind that right now she was being quite a nuisance to the whole brotherhood dynamic.
- - -
Zitao was sitting on a bench on a hill in the park, far enough from the walking path below that he was completely protected from the potential site of a female posterior within critical range. He had brought his PSP with him, a trusty device that, because he had download videos of Jongdae beforehand and set up new popup blockers, meant he was guaranteed a fruitful study period.
He spent that afternoon mouthing Jongdae’s words with a furrowed brow and giggling along with the audience at his snide comments. When Jongdae’s words grew sparser in the audio clip, Zitao’s crotch chimed in that it was getting bored. Zitao’s mind, tired of Korean, added that it was about time he got back to thinking about that glorious Japanese ass.
No must focus on Jongdae must learn from Jongdae must become awesome at Korean and have boss pronunciation.
Zitao occupied himself by surfing his weibo, repeating the words Jongdae said and chanting to himself the reasons why those words must win over ass in his head.
- - -
The next morning Zitao had 86 messages on his weibo.
Panda is practicing Korean <3
Is this how you practice Korean Tao lol
Chen has pretty Korean right >.< Zitao jiayou!
Looool Tao Ge so cute <3 Listening to Chen’s voice xD
Tao why did you post this? Do you want your fans to practice Korean with you?
Cheeeen <3
Does Zitao Ge fall asleep listening to this >.<
Panda Tao must love his Gege very much right?
Zitao scratched his head in total confusion.
What the…
His eyes widened, hands gripping his laptop as he found his answer: He had accidentally posted a video of Jongdae he had downloaded onto his weibo.
Fuck.
“Duizhaaaaaaaaang! Help!”
- - -
After the embarrassment had boiled over, Zitao sat at his laptop several days later, somehow still keen on perfecting his Korean. He had settled on watching another drama, but had completely missed the “horror” tag and paid for his inattention towards the end of the first episode, when the heroine found herself surrounded by extremely realistic-looking forest spirits.
That had ended fast.
He stared once again at the YinYueTai homepage, thinking of what keywords to enter.
Not Jongdae.
Not Minseok, given how complicated things had gotten with Jongdae, and how quickly.
No one from Exo K.
No SM sunbaes.
No one he would feasibly ever ever ever meet face to face.
Zitao sighed. Maybe Lu Han had some tapes with old Korean teachers acting overenthusiastic about Korean vocabulary.
- - -
It turned out Lu Han had given away all his tapes a long time ago, although Yixing was able to find him several audio files he had stored on his computer. Zitao fell asleep sometime during the Asking for Directions chapter (no harm in reviewing the basics, right?) in a somewhat grumpy mood, annoyed that he didn’t have a pretty voice like Jongdae’s to explain to him how to get to the Seoul Hospital instead.
Jongdae really wasn’t the lead vocal of Exo M for nothing, after all.
- - -
Zitao was playing another online game, this time on Wu Fan’ mini laptop, as they waited in one of the airport restaurants for lunch to be served.
“Baozi, how do you say this in Korean?” Lu Han asked Minseok as he pointed out an item on the menu. Before Minseok could articulate an answer, Lu Han moved to the next item. “And this one? What about this one? And here~?”
Minseok wiggled his head. “Well, seeing as this one here is the restaurant name, you would just say it with a Korean accent, no?”
Lu Han giggled and gave it a try.
“Wait, Lu Han Ge, do you really want to know how to say these in Korean?” asked Jongdae.
“Jongdae, they’re just playing,” Yixing said, touching his shoulder.
“Chen Chen’s just looking out for Lu Han,” said Wu Fan with a smile, leaning his cheek on his fist. “Cute, right?”
Yixing chuckled, nodding.
Meanwhile, their youngest member was making dangerous parallels between Jongdae-lost-in-Chinese-interviews-as-compiled-into-fanvideos and the current Jongdae situation, and how it all related back to bikinis. His fingers tightened around the mini laptop base, somehow dwarfing it in his hands.
“Easy, easy,” Wu Fan said, tapping Zitao’s wrist to remind him that he was not in fact the owner of said mini laptop and that it was thus his responsibility to keep it intact and ready for subsequent Duizhang-type activities.
The sound of a plate of food being set on their table brought Zitao back to the real world for a second, as he hurried to put the mini laptop away to eat. He quickly exited several windows, before realizing that there it was, the dreaded popup.
He left the window open, the one that just covered the popup message, leaving only the ends of a head of black hair blowing in the summer wind showing from behind it.
That was more than enough for Zitao. He firmly closed the computer (too firmly, going by Wu Fan’ anxious noise) and ran out of the restaurant. He was met with the men’s washroom sign, and froze, realizing what he’d been about to do.
IDOLS DO NOT MASTURBATE IN AIRPORT WASHROOMS, GODDAMNIT.
Zitao mentally stomped his foot in frustration.
He ran back to the restaurant, and was met at the opening with Wu Fan, who was half taking in Zitao’s appearance, trying to puzzle out just what was going on, and half attempting to stare down each and every fan who had decided to turn this opportunity into a miniature photo-shoot. Wu Fan’ expression of somewhat suppressed panic and confusion mirrored how Zitao felt, and at that moment he wanted nothing more than to run into the arms of his beloved duizhang and just weep away all of his sexual frustration.
“You…ready to eat?” Wu Fan tried.
Zitao thought back to the noodle soup he had ordered and deemed it to be a very effective distraction from his current emotions. He walked back to his seat and gave a weak chuckle as an explanation to his band mates, who were too busy stuffing their mouths to analyze the whole situation, and got down to business on his own meal, already placed in his spot and getting slightly cold. He shoved mouthful after mouthful of noodles down his throat, bowl almost around his face in his effort to calm both his physical and sexual hunger.
He was glad Jongdae was busy with his own food because if one more nervous word of Korean had escaped him Zitao would have started shouting nonsense right then and there about the need for linguistic segregation and the evil of formulaic interview questions and the trouble with Japanese models who just kept sticking their butts where they didn’t belong.
In the plane, Zitao scowled down at his PSP, even thought it wasn’t its fault that he could no longer find solace in his downloaded episodes of My Girlfriend is a Gumiho given that it was in a very, very dangerous language. He placed himself between Yixing and Lu Han and let himself be soothed by the sound of their (beautifully Mandarin) conversation, drifting slowly to sleep.
- - -
Seated on his hotel bed with a dopey smile on his face, Zitao swung his feet back in forth in mid-air as he watched Minseok unpack. For the first time in a while, Zitao was not feeling horny, and it felt fucking amazing.
He bobbed his head to his inner ‘Not horny not horny~’ chant as he answered the cellphone buzzing in his pocket.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Wu Fan, could you and Minseok come down for a quick meetup?”
Zitao quickly asked his roommate before telling Wu Fan yes and asking him for the room number.
“Oh, right. Wait, Manager wrote it down for me. I’ve got it here somewhere…”
Zitao grinned as he waited for Wu Fan to find the room number, all too pleased with himself at how much more comfortable he felt today about dealing with Jongdae.
Yeah, that’s right. Bring it on, Jongdae-
Zitao recoiled at the sudden onslaught of blood towards his crotch.
“Here it is. Okay, room 108. It’s down the hall from the dining hall, near the bathrooms?”
Zitao gave a noise to indicate he’d heard, eyes popping out of his head as he tried to puzzle why this bout of horniness was different from the all others.
“We’re just going to go over schedules again, there’s changes and more interviews now, so just to prepare ourselves mentally, really.”
Wait.
Usually his train of thought went:
1. Jongdae
2. Korean
3. Mustnotmustnotmustnotmakeconnection
4. Oops too late bikini butts
5. Horny
But, this time.
Could he have actually.
Skipped steps 2 to 4?
Had he become turned on by the mere thought of Jongdae?
“Are you guys done unpacking yet?”
Oh god.
It was true.
He had become turned on by the mere thought of Jongdae.
“I’m done, Minseok ge’s still putting stuff away in drawers,” Zitao said weakly, running a hand through his hair.
Jongdae was actually truthfully unavoidably utterly directly turning him on.
“Okay, good, see you in a bit-Zitao, you okay?”
Zitao’s moan of frustration resonated through the room and his phone, as he fell backwards onto his bed, hand still in his hair and legs bouncing up under the force of his fall of desperation. In front of him, Minseok echoed Wu Fan’ question.
“I…I…yeah, I’m fine.”
Zitao shut his eyes and repeatedly rammed the back of his head into the bed.
Juuust fine.
- - - - -
Part 2
Part 3