This Charming Man for EVERYONE [1/2]
For: EVERYONE
Title: This Charming Man
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/Lay
Rating: PG-13
Length: 11271
Summary: When Chanyeol decides to take up guitar classes, he hadn’t expected to meet Zhang Yixing, an insufferable hipster, nor had he been prepared for anything worse than not understanding basic music theory.
Author's note: Title taken from The Smiths’ song.
Thank you so much to the anon beta! I really appreciate your hard work.
to my recipient, I loved a lot of your prompts, but I thought I’d be able to handle chanxing better than the others. I do hope this is what you wanted out of the prompt!!
Chanyeol didn’t know how Baekhyun and Jongdae got enough money, being unemployed and all, but somehow they managed to get Chanyeol a rather nice looking Martin acoustic guitar for an early birthday present. When they gave it to him, they simply said, “We expect a setlist by the end of the year. Get to work, photo boy, and stop taking all those obnoxious pictures of us.” Chanyeol, though completely shocked about their gift, hugged both of them, until Baekhyun punched him in the stomach and told him to stop being gross.
Chanyeol took the guitar home, opened its case, and realized that there weren’t any strings on the guitar, and his friends didn’t think to buy any. Chanyeol sighed, realizing that he obviously wasn’t going to play that day - that day turned into about a week, and that turned into a week and half, and that made him worry about Baekhyun and Jongdae showing up unannounced one day and demanding to hear a cover song that he clearly wouldn’t be able to play.
And that’s why Chanyeol is presently standing in front of the music department’s front doors; he has absolutely no idea how to play guitar, hell, he has no idea how to string his guitar. Better yet, he has no idea where he can buy his strings, or even what strings to buy. Luckily for him, around the school, someone has been advertising free, free, guitar lessons. Though the ad itself looks rather shady in Chanyeol’s opinion, the lessons are sponsored by someone in the music department, so he’s willing to give it a shot. (The ad in question was haphazardly copied, with nearly a fourth of the page blank, and questionable with its poorly drawn guitar beside a chibi person with curly hair and dimples, who was wearing a nirvana tee and showing a peace sign).
Jongdae has a few classes in the department this semester, and he seems to enjoy his professors, so Chanyeol isn’t expecting an awful instructor, maybe just one that’s a bit strange and has an odd taste in design. He called the music department’s head professor to set up an appointment, as the ad suggested, for 4 on the upcoming Tuesday, and here he is at 3:30, thirty minutes in advance, so as to not be the first person. Currently, he’s just standing around, waiting for anyone else to show up.
At 3:50, and no one else has shown up yet, Chanyeol sighs and opens the front door of the music building. With Jongdae’s directions in the back of his mind, he walks down the hallway, takes a left, and knocks on the second classroom on the left. A few seconds go by before a guy who looks far too young to be a professor opens the door, “Hello? Do you need something?”
“Um, hi? I’m Park Chanyeol, I’m here for the guit-”
The other man's eyes grow wide (with surprise? or happiness? ... something?), and he ushers Chanyeol inside by saying, “Come in! You’re a bit early!”
“It’s only ten minutes before-” Chanyeol cuts himself off when he sees that literally no one else is in the classroom except for him and this young professor. He was expecting, with a professor so generously donating his time, more people to be here than this.
“Where is everyone?” Chanyeol asks as he sits his guitar case on the floor and looks around.
“Everyone?” The man tilts his head side to side in confusion.
“Yeah, I mean, don’t you have students who could benefit from this too?”
The other man stares at him for a few seconds before bursting in laughter. Chanyeol thinks that his laugh, though cute in its giggly nature, belongs to someone who maybe isn’t completely sane. Maybe he should have been more suspicious of these lessons, given the ad boasting the stupid looking guitar, before he came.
The other man wipes his eye, for show or to actually remove tears of laughter, Chanyeol doesn’t know. “You’ve got it all wrong. I’m Zhang Yixing, a musical composition major. Not a professor. I’m giving out free guitar lessons as part of my final exam in a course, and also as a good deed to the community. So, pull up a chair and I’ll start teaching you.”
Chanyeol, taking in Zhang Yixing’s appearance, sees that the man is dressed in a faux-denim button down with a silver cross necklace on top, khaki skinny jeans that make his legs go on for miles despite the fact that he’s still considerably shorter than Chanyeol, and classic black high tops to complete the outfit. Chanyeol supposes nothing out of the ordinary could be going on with this Yixing guy; after all, he is a student here, and the music department sponsors his lessons. Chanyeol grabs a chair from against the wall, picks up his guitar case, and places both down across from Yixing, in the middle of the room.
“What type of guitar do you have?” Yixing asks as he’s unpacking his own, along with a lot of supplies Chanyeol didn’t even know existed. He’s heard of picks before, but what’s that bar thing? And, what is he putting on the end of his guitar?
“Uh- It’s a Martin.” Chanyeol quietly says, gently opening the case and revealing his still unstrung Martin acoustic.
“Have you ever played before?” Yixing asks, still not looking up at Chanyeol as he begins tuning his guitar, or at least that’s what Chanyeol assumes he’s doing.
“About that…. No. My guitar isn’t stringed either…” Chanyeol mumbles, looking down at his case.
Yixing finally looks up at that, and when he sees Chanyeol’s hopeless expression and his unstringed guitar, he giggles, quite loudly. “You’re telling me you have a relatively high dollar guitar, and you’ve never played before? Never even strung a guitar?”
“Well, I mean,” Chanyeol defends, “it was a gift from my friends for my birthday, so I didn’t pick it out.”
“Ah, I see.” Yixing hums and places some of his supplies back into his case. “Your friends must really care about you to get you this.” Yixing laughs and shakes his head, making his perfectly swept bangs fall over his eyes and block his vision, until he pushes the hair out of the way. “Why didn’t I have friends like yours when I began playing?”
Yixing walks towards the storage room, and he returns with two guitar stands. “Okay, so let me put my guitar on the stand, and I’ll help you string your guitar.”
“Uh,” Chanyeol nervously adjusts his sideburns, “I don’t have any strings?”
Yixing gently smiles at him. “You’re in luck; I have an extra set.”
Chanyeol, so excited from the idea that he’ll actually be able to play, nearly drops his guitar out of his lap, causing Yixing to turn quickly and look at him with frightened, wide eyes.
“Be careful!” Yixing says when he squats to grab something out of his guitar case, broadcasting his firm, muscular thighs, and Chanyeol gulps and looks away before he starts blushing. Yixing sits down in his chair with a small, square packet in his hand and says, “If you didn’t know, these are strings.” He lifts the small package and continues. “If you’ll put your guitar on the other stand I brought, I’ll teach you how to string your guitar.”
Chanyeol, carefully, does as he’s told and places his guitar on the stand beside Yixing’s. Yixing kneels in front of the guitar and opens the package, revealing much longer strings than Chanyeol ever imagined could fit in such a small packet.
“Okay, so the important thing about stringing a guitar is to look at the chart on the back of the strings,” Yixing holds the package towards Chanyeol and points to the chart, “that way you can make sure you have the right string in the right place. And, you also need to know what string goes where in the first place. Do you know the order of the strings?”
Chanyeol simply shakes his head, and Yixing nods understandingly.
“Okay, well, remember this: the order of the strings is capital E, A, D, G, B, lower case e.” Yixing articulates every letter by speaking with his hands. “Little e represents the smallest string, and the capital E is of course the thickest string. Got it?”
Chanyeol smiles excitedly and sits down on the floor beside Yixing. “Got it. Capital E, A G, D, B, lower case e.”
“Close,” Yixing shakes his head while reading the chart, “but not exact. It’s capital E, A, D, G, B, lower case e. You switched the G and the D.”
“Oh,” Chanyeol mumbles as he looks away, slightly embarrassed.
Yixing looks at him and grins; he points to something on the chart that Chanyeol doesn’t really understand. “The biggest reason I use the chart is because sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the B string and the lower case e string - and I say that from personal experience. One time I put them in the wrong place and didn’t realize until I tried to tune them and broke one of them when it wouldn’t tune properly.”
Chanyeol feels better about his inexperience after hearing that his guitar instructor has made a careless mistake like that before. Knowing that Yixing obviously improved, despite his mistakes, inspires Chanyeol to pay closer detail to the chart, until he gives up when he thinks it’s still too difficult to understand.
Yixing hands him the chart and leans over to grab something near his chair, and Chanyeol averts his eyes so he doesn’t stare at the strip of milky skin caused by Yixing’s shirt rising. When Yixing grabs the object - some spinny device, Chanyeol notices - he says, “Okay, Chanyeol, hand me the capital E string.”
“And that is?” Chanyeol asks, completed bemused by the chart.
“The thickest one.” Yixing says expressionlessly, making Chanyeol embarrassed for the nth time today, and it’s only been a max of fifteen minutes.
“Okay,” Chanyeol says, and he searches through the individually packaged strings until he finds one with a capital E on the plastic packaging. “Yixing, did you know that they tell you which string is which on the wrapping?” Chanyeol enthusiastically grins and hands him the string.
“Aren’t you lucky?” Yixing chuckles, tearing off the plastic surrounding the string. Once he has the string in his hand, Yixing says, “Watch closely. It’s simple, really. First, you take the end without the bead on the end….” Chanyeol accidentally zones Yixing out as he describes the various steps to string a guitar; however, not wanting to be completely inattentive, Chanyeol concentrates on every one of Yixing’s movements in the hopes that he will be able to replicate everything soon.
"Now that we've done that, we lead it through this little hole, which allows us to tune the string." Yixing finishes with a smile.
Yixing looks at Chanyeol and his eyes brighten with excitement, "I know a special trick for this part. When we put it through that hole, some people continually wrap it around this piece," he points to a small knob where the hole is located, "however, I learned that if you wrap it once and bend it backwards, it will allow you to cut more excess string, and your guitar will stay in tune longer! Isn't that great?"
"Yeah, that sounds awesome," Chanyeol looks unsure, "but, why is the string so loose right now?" To emphasize his point, he plucks the string, and it makes a metallic boing sound.
Yixing looks like he wants to say something, but he shakes his head and grins. "That's because we haven't tightened it yet."
"Oh. Why don't we do it now?"
Yixing's eyes grow with disgust and fear. "What? You can't do that! You'll ruin the neck!"
"The neck?"
Yixing runs a hand along the side of the fretboard, "This long part from the body," Yixing slaps a hand below the sound hole, "to the head," he points to the top of the guitar, "is the neck. Kinda looks like a giraffe neck, am I right?"
Chanyeol chuckles at Yixing's analogy. "So, how does tightening the string now ruin the neck?"
Yixing holds a hand out, silently asking for the next string, and when Chanyeol hands him the A string, Yixing nods in approval, making Chanyeol smile widely. "You'd create tension on one part of the neck, and since the tension wouldn't be equal across, it would warp it."
"Oh, okay," Chanyeol watches Yixing repeat the process at double speed, and in about thirty seconds, he is finished and turns to him expectantly. Chanyeol picks up the next string and hands it to Yixing, who shakes his head and smiles. "You've seen me do it twice; you can do it now."
Chanyeol nods and shakily removes the packaging around the string, and with slight hesitation, he repeats the steps he watched Yixing do two times before. After he leads the string through the hole that helps tune it (or something like that), Chanyeol is at a loss at what to do, so he turns to Yixing and resignedly shrugs his shoulders.
"You’ve put it through the hole. So, do the little trick I taught you, and then you're ready for the next string."
Chanyeol successfully strings the string, making Yixing beam and say, "Good job! You finish the last three strings, and I'll work on my music theory assignment. If you need help, just let me know."
Chanyeol waves his hand dismissively and grins before picking up the next string, unwrapping it, and repeating Yixing's steps. After completing the process two more times after that, Chanyeol stands up with his hands behind his back and grabs Yixing's attention by proudly yelling, "I did it! I did it, Yixing!"
Yixing chuckles and puts down his pencil and staff paper before moving over to Chanyeol's guitar and instantly frowning. "Did I do something wrong?"
Yixing sighs in laughter, "Yes. You put the G and little e strings in the opposite spots."
"What? I put them in the right place down here!" Chanyeol dramatically points to the area close to the sound hole before turning to Yixing for his nonexistent approval.
"Yes, you're right," Yixing sweetly smiles, "but, you didn't put them in the right place up here." He points to the tuning knobs.
Chanyeol groans, and Yixing gently pats his knee. "It's a simple fix. I'll do it."
Chanyeol sees Yixing quickly undoing his mistakes and reinserting the strings into their correct places. Once he finishes, he turns to Chanyeol and smiles, "Now all we have to do is tighten and tune them, then you're ready to go. Okay?"
Yixing grabs the spinny tool from where he left it on the floor and quickly turns it around all of the tuning knobs, Chanyeol watching in awe. After he tightens the strings so that they no longer make a boing noise, Yixing points to his guitar case and asks, “Chanyeol, will you get my tuner out?”
Chanyeol crawls over to the other’s guitar case and frowns because Yixing clearly has a lot of supplies. “What does it look like?”
“A black rectangle, with three lights.”
Chanyeol takes it back to him and Yixing pats his shoulder, thanking him. “I’ll tune these for you, so we can get started. But, for future reference, when you use a tuner, you want the green light to light up when you pluck a string.”
Chanyeol nods, and Yixing finishes tuning his guitar and strums all six strings with a smile before handing the guitar back to Chanyeol.
Yixing grabs his own guitar and returns to his seat, Chanyeol sitting down in his chair soon after. "That took a bit longer than I thought, so I'll teach you the basics, and then you'll need to do some homework, okay?" Yixing hums as he quietly plays an indie tune.
"Sure, I can do that!"
"First off, each one of these," Yixing touches the spaces between the lines on the fretboard, "are frets. The first one is called the first fret, the second the second fret, and so on. So, if I were to tell you to put a finger on the second fret of the A string, could you do that?"
Chanyeol bends over his guitar with his tongue sticking out of mouth before he puts his finger down on a string and asks, "Is this right?"
"Yes! Good, you catch on quick!" Yixing lopsidedly grins, "Now I'll teach you your first chord. This is the G major chord. Remember that. Put a finger on the third fret of the big E string, second fret of the A string, and the third fret of the little e string."
"Does it matter which fingers?"
Yixing shrugs noncommittally. "Whatever's comfortable."
"Okay," Chanyeol says as he stares at the fretboard, deep in thought. After a brief silence, Chanyeol whines, "Is this right?"
Yixing shakes his head and giggles, "No, let me help." Yixing puts his guitar back on the stand and squats in front of Chanyeol before he moves Chanyeol's pinky finger over a fret and his middle finger up a string, “Perfect."
Chanyeol blushes, from his contact with Yixing or Yixing’s compliment he doesn't know. "Thanks.... I guess. What now?"
"Strum the strings."
Taking Yixing's advice, he strikes his thumb over the strings, making a blunt, muted sound. Chanyeol pouts and looks helplessly at Yixing.
"Are you pressing down, or just resting your fingers on the strings?"
'Just resting them?"
Yixing has to resist the urge to facepalm. "You have to press down, Chanyeol. And, before you whine, it may sting."
Chanyeol nods, and Yixing can visibly see Chanyeol pushing on the strings. He strums again, this time eliciting a more pleasant sound. His face brightens dramatically and he strums again and again.
“The important thing to watch for when you learn chords is whether the strings are vibrating or not. If you don’t push down completely, they won’t vibrate.” Yixing pulls his phone out of his pocket and quietly gasps at the time. “I believe that’s it for today’s lesson, but before you go, let me give you my number; that way you can text me if you can’t make a lesson, or I’ll text you if I can’t.”
Chanyeol sets his guitar on the stand and pulls out his phone, giving it to Yixing. When Yixing gives it back, he picks up his guitar and plays a rather challenging looking song that gives off an indie vibe, just like the song he played earlier.
Chanyeol, completely intrigued, watches Yixing’s free expression as he plays, as if he’s lost in his own melodies and can’t notice that Chanyeol is still there, watching. All too soon, Yixing breaks the peaceful silence between them when he looks at Chanyeol and tilts his head, “You know you can leave, right?” Yixing pushes some things around within his case and places his guitar in soon after, “I’ll be leaving in a few minutes, but you can go on.”
“Oh, I was just- I- you’re very good at guitar, that’s all,” Chanyeol stammers and hurriedly packs up his stuff.
“Thank you,” Yixing turns and dimples before picking up the stands and walking back to the storage room. “I’ll see you in two days, right?”
“Right,” Chanyeol, after putting immaculate detail into making sure he closed the locks, picks up his case and walks to the door. “See you, Yixing.”
“See you, Chanyeol!” Chanyeol hears as he steps out of the door, and he doesn’t realize until he’s almost to his dorm that he hasn’t stopped grinning.
As soon as he enters his dorm room, only to find it empty, Chanyeol puts his guitar case on his bed and opens his laptop in order to start his “homework.” On his way home, Yixing sent him a text with a list of chords he should know by their next lesson, and for once in his life, Chanyeol doesn’t feel the need to procrastinate, so he googles a chord chart and unpacks his guitar.
Chanyeol attempts the chord Yixing taught him earlier, and when he succeeds, he looks at his text and reads the first chord: Em. Chanyeol looks back at the chart in confusion, and deciding that the chart seems far too difficult, he googles, “Em chord guitar.” He sees a much simpler chart with just the one chord on it, making him smile as he picks up his guitar and attempts to understand the chart.
After staring at it for half a minute, Chanyeol sighs aloud and considers texting Yixing, saying that he doesn’t understand what the charts mean, but his thoughts are interrupted when Jongdae calls him.
“Yeah?” Chanyeol says distractedly, still trying to understand the chord chart.
“What are you doing?” Chanyeol hears Baekhyun’s obnoxious laughter in the background.
“Practicing guitar. You?” He sighs and moves closer to his computer screen, hoping the proximity will increase his understanding.
“We’re five minutes away from your dorm, so we’ll be there soon.”
Chanyeol chuckles and packs up his guitar, cutting his already short practice session even shorter. “Since when do you invite yourselves over?”
Jongdae snorts, “Since you’ve been living there. I’m hanging up; see you soon.”
Before Chanyeol can respond, the call ends, leaving Chanyeol to quickly finish packing up his guitar and to pick up the few pieces of clothing littering the floor. His roommate, Kyungsoo, immaculately cleans his side of the room, so by comparison, Chanyeol’s side looks messy and distraught, even with only a few coke cans on his nightstand or yesterday’s gym shorts on the floor. And though he’s sure his friends wouldn’t mind a mess, he doesn’t want to come off as a slob. (Or, he really doesn’t want to see the supposed wrath of his roommate).
Baekhyun and Jongdae arrive after Chanyeol throws his Red Bull can into the recycling bin; Jongdae has the decency to knock on Chanyeol’s door, but Baekhyun pushes the unlocked door open and announces to Chanyeol’s dorm, “Your majesty awaits.”
“Is that your preferred name these days?” Jongdae jokingly asks as he plops down on Chanyeol’s futon.
“I don’t know. Maybe?” Baekhyun smiles and sits beside Jongdae, and Chanyeol watches his friends’ interactions while shaking his head.
Chanyeol sits in the beanbag near the futon and turns around to face his friends. “So, I just got back from guitar practice around twenty minutes ago.”
“Oh yeah? Can you play us any songs yet?” Jongdae asks as he wraps an arm around Baekhyun’s waist and pulls him closer.
Chanyeol stares at them with a raised eyebrow. “No. I know like, one and a half chords.”
Baekhyun snorts, “How do you know half of a chord?”
Chanyeol presses his lips in mock-aggravation. “Well, I looked at the chord chart and sorta-kinda, not really understood, but I’m like halfway there to getting it.” When he sees Baekhyun and Jongdae’s shared unimpressed expressions, he defends, “I swear! I guess I’ll have to text Yixing for help.”
Baekhyun lifts his eyebrows in a pretend seductive way. “You’ve been to one lesson and already have his digits?”
Chanyeol shakes his head and laughs, while subconsciously hoping that it’s dark enough in his dorm to hide his blush. “No, no, it’s not like that. Yixing is just…. He’s really cool. Like, his calm personality makes you want to have a cup of tea with him while you chat about the potential for world peace.”
Jongdae guffaws and squeezes Baekhyun’s side so much the latter cringes in pain. “Chanyeol, you realize that is a date to someone like Zhang Yixing. I don’t know him that well, but he seems like the type who would plan a first date doing volunteer work.”
“He did say he was giving lessons as part of his final assignment and as a good deed to the community,” Chanyeol mumbles, staring at his hands in his lap.
“See?” Jongdae smirks as he leans forward and removes his arm from around Baekhyun. “Let’s play Mario Kart or something. I’m bored.”
“Okay, but I’m Yoshi!” Chanyeol yells and grabs his Wii controllers from the TV table.
“Whatever. I’ll be Mario, and Jongdae can be my Princess Peach.”
Chanyeol looks over at Baekhyun, surprised at his cheeky words, until he averts his eyes to Jongdae when he replies, “I thought you were the majesty here, not me.”
Baekhyun smiles and grabs two beanbags from the pile against the wall and hands one to Jongdae before sitting down on the other. “We’ll reign the kingdom together.”
Chanyeol squints his eyes in disgust before turning on the Wii and letting the bright animation of Mario Kart entice him to finally beat one of the others.
Two hours into their game, Kyungsoo arrives to his shared dorm, and when he sees Baekhyun and Jongdae side by side, screaming at each other for supposedly cheating, he groans and walks into the living room with a blank stare. “It’s nearly 8, and I have an early class tomorrow, a lot of homework tonight, and you guys are way too loud. I trust that you two can see yourselves out.”
“Kyungsoo, you always speak to me as if we're not friends,” Baekhyun laughs as he pulls Jongdae up from the beanbag.
“Because we’re not,” Kyungsoo crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. “We’re acquaintances who happen to have mutual friends and a class together.”
“Cold,” Jongdae jokingly winces and walks with Baekhyun in tow to the door. “Keep us updated on the Yixing dilemma!”
“There’s nothing to keep you updated about!” Chanyeol yells, only for the response to be a slammed door.
Kyungsoo walks into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of water before entering their shared bedroom and sitting at his desk. Chanyeol follows and sits on his own bed, staring at his guitar. Looking at his roommate, who is opening a chemistry book, Chanyeol asks, “Would it be alright for me to practice guitar? I don’t want to be too loud.”
Kyungsoo turns around and looks at him, chuckling. “No, go right ahead. Your guitar won’t bother me; Baekhyun and Jongdae’s screaming matches bother me.”
Chanyeol nods and smiles before unpacking his guitar again and opening his laptop in hopes that he will understand the chord diagrams with his little break from practicing. Finally, he decides to watch a video on reading the charts, and halfway through the video, Chanyeol releases an excited, “Oh!” and pauses the video, returning to the Em chord chart. He places his fingers in the right places and strums; happy with the sound, he moves onto the next chord on Yixing’s list: C. He pulls up the next chart and learns the chord considerably quicker than Em, and he grins to himself about his rapid progress from three hours ago.
After Em and C, He also learns D and Am, and as he is switching from C to D, he strums too forcefully; suddenly, he hears a popping sound and sees his little e string swinging freely.
Chanyeol mumbles, “Dammit,” at the same time that Kyungsoo asks, “What was that?” Sighing, Chanyeol says, “I broke a string.”
Kyungsoo snorts and continues to write in his notebook. “How long have you been playing? A day? And, you’ve already broken a string. Talent.”
Chanyeol picks up his phone and murmurs, “No one asked for your sass, Kyungsoo.”
Chanyeol opens Yixing’s text about the chords he needs to learn and replies with,I think I broke the little e string.
A few minutes later, during which Chanyeol stares pitifully at his guitar, Yixing sends him a text: You think?
No, i know. it’s broken.
okay. come by tomorrow and we’ll see if you can put one on yourself.
Two days after he broke his string, and a day after he stopped by the music department to fix his string (where Yixing told him, “You’re going to bankrupt me if you don’t start getting your own strings!”), Chanyeol has his next guitar lesson with Yixing. Once again, he arrives at 3:30, only to wait outside the building for twenty minutes before entering. When Yixing greets him with his coffee travel mug in hand, the combination of Yixing’s sweet smile and his attire (blue flannel over an obscure band tee along with a pair of white jeans that seemingly mold to the contours of Yixing’s sculpted thighs) makes Chanyeol’s heart flutter. He ushers Chanyeol inside and sets a chair in the middle of the room, with Chanyeol doing the same.
“So, how much do you remember?” Yixing asks as he walks to the storage room for stands.
“A lot, actually. I’ve been practicing, too,” Chanyeol says when Yixing returns and hands him a stand.
“Oh really? Show me what you know.”
Taking a deep breath, Chanyeol plays through the list of chords he knows. Though two chords don’t sound completely, Chanyeol keeps his composure as Yixing’s calm demeanor has been rubbing off on him, and once he finishes, he looks at the other for approval. Yixing smiles widely, causing a deep dimple in his right cheek to form. “That was really good Chanyeol! I didn’t know you had learned that much!”
“Well, I did,” Chanyeol chuckles gawkily.
“Now that you know a lot of basic chords, I think it’s time to teach you how to learn any chord, without having to look up the chord chart. And, once you learn that, you can also find minor chords from major chords.”
Chanyeol tilts his head and asks, “How would I do that?”
“Well,” Yixing eyes brighten, and he scoots forward to the edge of his chair in excitement, “the first thing you have to know is that every fret also represents a musical letter.”
“I thought the frets were just called by numbers, like first fret or second fret.”
Yixing nods his head and smiles, “Yes, that’s true, but they also have corresponding letters. Tell me, what’s the thickest string?”
Yixing hardly finishes his question by the time Chanyeol answers, “Capital E string,” which makes Yixing chuckle and beam.
“Good, that’s right! However, if I push down on the first fret of the capital E string, what note is it?”
Chanyeol looks baffled and shakes his head while laughing, “Honestly, no idea.”
“It would be an F. We went up the chromatic scale one half step, because every fret represents a half step, okay? That’s important when we start constructing chords. When we have a major chord, there is a….” Chanyeol’s attention fades as Yixing drones on about music theory that Chanyeol has no hope for ever understanding, so instead of listening diligently, he prefers to nod every few seconds in pretend-comprehension and to watch Yixing vibrantly discuss a topic he so obviously loves.
When Yixing begins talking about major thirds (or was it minor?), he speaks with his hands, as if that would help Chanyeol understand the complexities of music that will forever be over his head. His eyes gloss over with happiness as he talks about the difference between perfect fourths and perfect fifths, and how that somehow affects the chord drastically. His lips quirk as he retells an incident in his freshman music theory class where he incorrectly identified a major diminished seventh chord as a major augmented seventh chord. Even though Chanyeol clearly doesn’t understand what is so funny or tragic about Yixing’s mistake, he laughs with the other boy as if it was the funniest thing in the world, which Chanyeol believes Yixing thinks it is. The longer he talks about the difference between harmonic minors and melodic minors, the longer Chanyeol has staring at Yixing’s protruding collarbones, and every time Yixing leans forward in excitement, he reveals a more pleasing glimpse of his chest because of his baggy band tank top.
Yixing decides to give examples of the differences among the chords that he had talked about a few minutes earlier (Chanyeol swears there’s nearly a thousand of them). All Chanyeol notices is the way Yixing’s long, relaxed fingers bend and curl over the strings, along with the calm aura that surrounds Yixing even when he plays so confidently. When Chanyeol’s eyes connect with Yixing’s, all of Yixing’s other distracting elements diminish from Chanyeol’s attention; he is purely fascinated with the way the light reflects off of his sparkling eyes, as if his eyes are a pristine lake blessed with the twinkles of light from the sun. He mentally frowns when he realizes that maybe he should leave the literary devices to someone like Jongdae, who has taken various poetry classes.
Yixing finishes his music theory lesson and starts fingerpicking a complicated melody, and after a few beats of just guitar, Yixing sings words that Chanyeol doesn’t understand; however, much like Yixing’s musical teachings earlier, he doesn’t need to understand to be entranced by him. Yixing transitions into a new song where he alternates between creating beats on the body of his guitar and strumming chords without a pick. Chanyeol finds it impossible to not stare in awe at Yixing’s raw talent as his voice follows the musical cues from his guitar, and he reaches notes Chanyeol thought only Baekhyun or Jongdae could hit.
Yixing stops playing suddenly and frowns sheepishly, “I’m sorry; sometimes I get a little distracted when I start playing. Where were we?”
When Chanyeol tells Yixing that they were talking about the chords that he needs to learn (because he didn’t retain anything from his lesson other than how talented Yixing is or how stunning his eyes are), Yixing smiles his lopsided grin that makes his dimples appear, and he tells Chanyeol that now they will focus on improving Chanyeol’s technique and speed.
Chanyeol simply nods and dazedly plays, switching chords when Yixing tells him to. Chanyeol’s daze only increases in the last fifteen minutes of class when Yixing decides to play a couple of songs, and Chanyeol finds that all he can do is stare in pure amazement.
►
Title: This Charming Man
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/Lay
Rating: PG-13
Length: 11271
Summary: When Chanyeol decides to take up guitar classes, he hadn’t expected to meet Zhang Yixing, an insufferable hipster, nor had he been prepared for anything worse than not understanding basic music theory.
Author's note: Title taken from The Smiths’ song.
Thank you so much to the anon beta! I really appreciate your hard work.
to my recipient, I loved a lot of your prompts, but I thought I’d be able to handle chanxing better than the others. I do hope this is what you wanted out of the prompt!!
Chanyeol didn’t know how Baekhyun and Jongdae got enough money, being unemployed and all, but somehow they managed to get Chanyeol a rather nice looking Martin acoustic guitar for an early birthday present. When they gave it to him, they simply said, “We expect a setlist by the end of the year. Get to work, photo boy, and stop taking all those obnoxious pictures of us.” Chanyeol, though completely shocked about their gift, hugged both of them, until Baekhyun punched him in the stomach and told him to stop being gross.
Chanyeol took the guitar home, opened its case, and realized that there weren’t any strings on the guitar, and his friends didn’t think to buy any. Chanyeol sighed, realizing that he obviously wasn’t going to play that day - that day turned into about a week, and that turned into a week and half, and that made him worry about Baekhyun and Jongdae showing up unannounced one day and demanding to hear a cover song that he clearly wouldn’t be able to play.
And that’s why Chanyeol is presently standing in front of the music department’s front doors; he has absolutely no idea how to play guitar, hell, he has no idea how to string his guitar. Better yet, he has no idea where he can buy his strings, or even what strings to buy. Luckily for him, around the school, someone has been advertising free, free, guitar lessons. Though the ad itself looks rather shady in Chanyeol’s opinion, the lessons are sponsored by someone in the music department, so he’s willing to give it a shot. (The ad in question was haphazardly copied, with nearly a fourth of the page blank, and questionable with its poorly drawn guitar beside a chibi person with curly hair and dimples, who was wearing a nirvana tee and showing a peace sign).
Jongdae has a few classes in the department this semester, and he seems to enjoy his professors, so Chanyeol isn’t expecting an awful instructor, maybe just one that’s a bit strange and has an odd taste in design. He called the music department’s head professor to set up an appointment, as the ad suggested, for 4 on the upcoming Tuesday, and here he is at 3:30, thirty minutes in advance, so as to not be the first person. Currently, he’s just standing around, waiting for anyone else to show up.
At 3:50, and no one else has shown up yet, Chanyeol sighs and opens the front door of the music building. With Jongdae’s directions in the back of his mind, he walks down the hallway, takes a left, and knocks on the second classroom on the left. A few seconds go by before a guy who looks far too young to be a professor opens the door, “Hello? Do you need something?”
“Um, hi? I’m Park Chanyeol, I’m here for the guit-”
The other man's eyes grow wide (with surprise? or happiness? ... something?), and he ushers Chanyeol inside by saying, “Come in! You’re a bit early!”
“It’s only ten minutes before-” Chanyeol cuts himself off when he sees that literally no one else is in the classroom except for him and this young professor. He was expecting, with a professor so generously donating his time, more people to be here than this.
“Where is everyone?” Chanyeol asks as he sits his guitar case on the floor and looks around.
“Everyone?” The man tilts his head side to side in confusion.
“Yeah, I mean, don’t you have students who could benefit from this too?”
The other man stares at him for a few seconds before bursting in laughter. Chanyeol thinks that his laugh, though cute in its giggly nature, belongs to someone who maybe isn’t completely sane. Maybe he should have been more suspicious of these lessons, given the ad boasting the stupid looking guitar, before he came.
The other man wipes his eye, for show or to actually remove tears of laughter, Chanyeol doesn’t know. “You’ve got it all wrong. I’m Zhang Yixing, a musical composition major. Not a professor. I’m giving out free guitar lessons as part of my final exam in a course, and also as a good deed to the community. So, pull up a chair and I’ll start teaching you.”
Chanyeol, taking in Zhang Yixing’s appearance, sees that the man is dressed in a faux-denim button down with a silver cross necklace on top, khaki skinny jeans that make his legs go on for miles despite the fact that he’s still considerably shorter than Chanyeol, and classic black high tops to complete the outfit. Chanyeol supposes nothing out of the ordinary could be going on with this Yixing guy; after all, he is a student here, and the music department sponsors his lessons. Chanyeol grabs a chair from against the wall, picks up his guitar case, and places both down across from Yixing, in the middle of the room.
“What type of guitar do you have?” Yixing asks as he’s unpacking his own, along with a lot of supplies Chanyeol didn’t even know existed. He’s heard of picks before, but what’s that bar thing? And, what is he putting on the end of his guitar?
“Uh- It’s a Martin.” Chanyeol quietly says, gently opening the case and revealing his still unstrung Martin acoustic.
“Have you ever played before?” Yixing asks, still not looking up at Chanyeol as he begins tuning his guitar, or at least that’s what Chanyeol assumes he’s doing.
“About that…. No. My guitar isn’t stringed either…” Chanyeol mumbles, looking down at his case.
Yixing finally looks up at that, and when he sees Chanyeol’s hopeless expression and his unstringed guitar, he giggles, quite loudly. “You’re telling me you have a relatively high dollar guitar, and you’ve never played before? Never even strung a guitar?”
“Well, I mean,” Chanyeol defends, “it was a gift from my friends for my birthday, so I didn’t pick it out.”
“Ah, I see.” Yixing hums and places some of his supplies back into his case. “Your friends must really care about you to get you this.” Yixing laughs and shakes his head, making his perfectly swept bangs fall over his eyes and block his vision, until he pushes the hair out of the way. “Why didn’t I have friends like yours when I began playing?”
Yixing walks towards the storage room, and he returns with two guitar stands. “Okay, so let me put my guitar on the stand, and I’ll help you string your guitar.”
“Uh,” Chanyeol nervously adjusts his sideburns, “I don’t have any strings?”
Yixing gently smiles at him. “You’re in luck; I have an extra set.”
Chanyeol, so excited from the idea that he’ll actually be able to play, nearly drops his guitar out of his lap, causing Yixing to turn quickly and look at him with frightened, wide eyes.
“Be careful!” Yixing says when he squats to grab something out of his guitar case, broadcasting his firm, muscular thighs, and Chanyeol gulps and looks away before he starts blushing. Yixing sits down in his chair with a small, square packet in his hand and says, “If you didn’t know, these are strings.” He lifts the small package and continues. “If you’ll put your guitar on the other stand I brought, I’ll teach you how to string your guitar.”
Chanyeol, carefully, does as he’s told and places his guitar on the stand beside Yixing’s. Yixing kneels in front of the guitar and opens the package, revealing much longer strings than Chanyeol ever imagined could fit in such a small packet.
“Okay, so the important thing about stringing a guitar is to look at the chart on the back of the strings,” Yixing holds the package towards Chanyeol and points to the chart, “that way you can make sure you have the right string in the right place. And, you also need to know what string goes where in the first place. Do you know the order of the strings?”
Chanyeol simply shakes his head, and Yixing nods understandingly.
“Okay, well, remember this: the order of the strings is capital E, A, D, G, B, lower case e.” Yixing articulates every letter by speaking with his hands. “Little e represents the smallest string, and the capital E is of course the thickest string. Got it?”
Chanyeol smiles excitedly and sits down on the floor beside Yixing. “Got it. Capital E, A G, D, B, lower case e.”
“Close,” Yixing shakes his head while reading the chart, “but not exact. It’s capital E, A, D, G, B, lower case e. You switched the G and the D.”
“Oh,” Chanyeol mumbles as he looks away, slightly embarrassed.
Yixing looks at him and grins; he points to something on the chart that Chanyeol doesn’t really understand. “The biggest reason I use the chart is because sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the B string and the lower case e string - and I say that from personal experience. One time I put them in the wrong place and didn’t realize until I tried to tune them and broke one of them when it wouldn’t tune properly.”
Chanyeol feels better about his inexperience after hearing that his guitar instructor has made a careless mistake like that before. Knowing that Yixing obviously improved, despite his mistakes, inspires Chanyeol to pay closer detail to the chart, until he gives up when he thinks it’s still too difficult to understand.
Yixing hands him the chart and leans over to grab something near his chair, and Chanyeol averts his eyes so he doesn’t stare at the strip of milky skin caused by Yixing’s shirt rising. When Yixing grabs the object - some spinny device, Chanyeol notices - he says, “Okay, Chanyeol, hand me the capital E string.”
“And that is?” Chanyeol asks, completed bemused by the chart.
“The thickest one.” Yixing says expressionlessly, making Chanyeol embarrassed for the nth time today, and it’s only been a max of fifteen minutes.
“Okay,” Chanyeol says, and he searches through the individually packaged strings until he finds one with a capital E on the plastic packaging. “Yixing, did you know that they tell you which string is which on the wrapping?” Chanyeol enthusiastically grins and hands him the string.
“Aren’t you lucky?” Yixing chuckles, tearing off the plastic surrounding the string. Once he has the string in his hand, Yixing says, “Watch closely. It’s simple, really. First, you take the end without the bead on the end….” Chanyeol accidentally zones Yixing out as he describes the various steps to string a guitar; however, not wanting to be completely inattentive, Chanyeol concentrates on every one of Yixing’s movements in the hopes that he will be able to replicate everything soon.
"Now that we've done that, we lead it through this little hole, which allows us to tune the string." Yixing finishes with a smile.
Yixing looks at Chanyeol and his eyes brighten with excitement, "I know a special trick for this part. When we put it through that hole, some people continually wrap it around this piece," he points to a small knob where the hole is located, "however, I learned that if you wrap it once and bend it backwards, it will allow you to cut more excess string, and your guitar will stay in tune longer! Isn't that great?"
"Yeah, that sounds awesome," Chanyeol looks unsure, "but, why is the string so loose right now?" To emphasize his point, he plucks the string, and it makes a metallic boing sound.
Yixing looks like he wants to say something, but he shakes his head and grins. "That's because we haven't tightened it yet."
"Oh. Why don't we do it now?"
Yixing's eyes grow with disgust and fear. "What? You can't do that! You'll ruin the neck!"
"The neck?"
Yixing runs a hand along the side of the fretboard, "This long part from the body," Yixing slaps a hand below the sound hole, "to the head," he points to the top of the guitar, "is the neck. Kinda looks like a giraffe neck, am I right?"
Chanyeol chuckles at Yixing's analogy. "So, how does tightening the string now ruin the neck?"
Yixing holds a hand out, silently asking for the next string, and when Chanyeol hands him the A string, Yixing nods in approval, making Chanyeol smile widely. "You'd create tension on one part of the neck, and since the tension wouldn't be equal across, it would warp it."
"Oh, okay," Chanyeol watches Yixing repeat the process at double speed, and in about thirty seconds, he is finished and turns to him expectantly. Chanyeol picks up the next string and hands it to Yixing, who shakes his head and smiles. "You've seen me do it twice; you can do it now."
Chanyeol nods and shakily removes the packaging around the string, and with slight hesitation, he repeats the steps he watched Yixing do two times before. After he leads the string through the hole that helps tune it (or something like that), Chanyeol is at a loss at what to do, so he turns to Yixing and resignedly shrugs his shoulders.
"You’ve put it through the hole. So, do the little trick I taught you, and then you're ready for the next string."
Chanyeol successfully strings the string, making Yixing beam and say, "Good job! You finish the last three strings, and I'll work on my music theory assignment. If you need help, just let me know."
Chanyeol waves his hand dismissively and grins before picking up the next string, unwrapping it, and repeating Yixing's steps. After completing the process two more times after that, Chanyeol stands up with his hands behind his back and grabs Yixing's attention by proudly yelling, "I did it! I did it, Yixing!"
Yixing chuckles and puts down his pencil and staff paper before moving over to Chanyeol's guitar and instantly frowning. "Did I do something wrong?"
Yixing sighs in laughter, "Yes. You put the G and little e strings in the opposite spots."
"What? I put them in the right place down here!" Chanyeol dramatically points to the area close to the sound hole before turning to Yixing for his nonexistent approval.
"Yes, you're right," Yixing sweetly smiles, "but, you didn't put them in the right place up here." He points to the tuning knobs.
Chanyeol groans, and Yixing gently pats his knee. "It's a simple fix. I'll do it."
Chanyeol sees Yixing quickly undoing his mistakes and reinserting the strings into their correct places. Once he finishes, he turns to Chanyeol and smiles, "Now all we have to do is tighten and tune them, then you're ready to go. Okay?"
Yixing grabs the spinny tool from where he left it on the floor and quickly turns it around all of the tuning knobs, Chanyeol watching in awe. After he tightens the strings so that they no longer make a boing noise, Yixing points to his guitar case and asks, “Chanyeol, will you get my tuner out?”
Chanyeol crawls over to the other’s guitar case and frowns because Yixing clearly has a lot of supplies. “What does it look like?”
“A black rectangle, with three lights.”
Chanyeol takes it back to him and Yixing pats his shoulder, thanking him. “I’ll tune these for you, so we can get started. But, for future reference, when you use a tuner, you want the green light to light up when you pluck a string.”
Chanyeol nods, and Yixing finishes tuning his guitar and strums all six strings with a smile before handing the guitar back to Chanyeol.
Yixing grabs his own guitar and returns to his seat, Chanyeol sitting down in his chair soon after. "That took a bit longer than I thought, so I'll teach you the basics, and then you'll need to do some homework, okay?" Yixing hums as he quietly plays an indie tune.
"Sure, I can do that!"
"First off, each one of these," Yixing touches the spaces between the lines on the fretboard, "are frets. The first one is called the first fret, the second the second fret, and so on. So, if I were to tell you to put a finger on the second fret of the A string, could you do that?"
Chanyeol bends over his guitar with his tongue sticking out of mouth before he puts his finger down on a string and asks, "Is this right?"
"Yes! Good, you catch on quick!" Yixing lopsidedly grins, "Now I'll teach you your first chord. This is the G major chord. Remember that. Put a finger on the third fret of the big E string, second fret of the A string, and the third fret of the little e string."
"Does it matter which fingers?"
Yixing shrugs noncommittally. "Whatever's comfortable."
"Okay," Chanyeol says as he stares at the fretboard, deep in thought. After a brief silence, Chanyeol whines, "Is this right?"
Yixing shakes his head and giggles, "No, let me help." Yixing puts his guitar back on the stand and squats in front of Chanyeol before he moves Chanyeol's pinky finger over a fret and his middle finger up a string, “Perfect."
Chanyeol blushes, from his contact with Yixing or Yixing’s compliment he doesn't know. "Thanks.... I guess. What now?"
"Strum the strings."
Taking Yixing's advice, he strikes his thumb over the strings, making a blunt, muted sound. Chanyeol pouts and looks helplessly at Yixing.
"Are you pressing down, or just resting your fingers on the strings?"
'Just resting them?"
Yixing has to resist the urge to facepalm. "You have to press down, Chanyeol. And, before you whine, it may sting."
Chanyeol nods, and Yixing can visibly see Chanyeol pushing on the strings. He strums again, this time eliciting a more pleasant sound. His face brightens dramatically and he strums again and again.
“The important thing to watch for when you learn chords is whether the strings are vibrating or not. If you don’t push down completely, they won’t vibrate.” Yixing pulls his phone out of his pocket and quietly gasps at the time. “I believe that’s it for today’s lesson, but before you go, let me give you my number; that way you can text me if you can’t make a lesson, or I’ll text you if I can’t.”
Chanyeol sets his guitar on the stand and pulls out his phone, giving it to Yixing. When Yixing gives it back, he picks up his guitar and plays a rather challenging looking song that gives off an indie vibe, just like the song he played earlier.
Chanyeol, completely intrigued, watches Yixing’s free expression as he plays, as if he’s lost in his own melodies and can’t notice that Chanyeol is still there, watching. All too soon, Yixing breaks the peaceful silence between them when he looks at Chanyeol and tilts his head, “You know you can leave, right?” Yixing pushes some things around within his case and places his guitar in soon after, “I’ll be leaving in a few minutes, but you can go on.”
“Oh, I was just- I- you’re very good at guitar, that’s all,” Chanyeol stammers and hurriedly packs up his stuff.
“Thank you,” Yixing turns and dimples before picking up the stands and walking back to the storage room. “I’ll see you in two days, right?”
“Right,” Chanyeol, after putting immaculate detail into making sure he closed the locks, picks up his case and walks to the door. “See you, Yixing.”
“See you, Chanyeol!” Chanyeol hears as he steps out of the door, and he doesn’t realize until he’s almost to his dorm that he hasn’t stopped grinning.
As soon as he enters his dorm room, only to find it empty, Chanyeol puts his guitar case on his bed and opens his laptop in order to start his “homework.” On his way home, Yixing sent him a text with a list of chords he should know by their next lesson, and for once in his life, Chanyeol doesn’t feel the need to procrastinate, so he googles a chord chart and unpacks his guitar.
Chanyeol attempts the chord Yixing taught him earlier, and when he succeeds, he looks at his text and reads the first chord: Em. Chanyeol looks back at the chart in confusion, and deciding that the chart seems far too difficult, he googles, “Em chord guitar.” He sees a much simpler chart with just the one chord on it, making him smile as he picks up his guitar and attempts to understand the chart.
After staring at it for half a minute, Chanyeol sighs aloud and considers texting Yixing, saying that he doesn’t understand what the charts mean, but his thoughts are interrupted when Jongdae calls him.
“Yeah?” Chanyeol says distractedly, still trying to understand the chord chart.
“What are you doing?” Chanyeol hears Baekhyun’s obnoxious laughter in the background.
“Practicing guitar. You?” He sighs and moves closer to his computer screen, hoping the proximity will increase his understanding.
“We’re five minutes away from your dorm, so we’ll be there soon.”
Chanyeol chuckles and packs up his guitar, cutting his already short practice session even shorter. “Since when do you invite yourselves over?”
Jongdae snorts, “Since you’ve been living there. I’m hanging up; see you soon.”
Before Chanyeol can respond, the call ends, leaving Chanyeol to quickly finish packing up his guitar and to pick up the few pieces of clothing littering the floor. His roommate, Kyungsoo, immaculately cleans his side of the room, so by comparison, Chanyeol’s side looks messy and distraught, even with only a few coke cans on his nightstand or yesterday’s gym shorts on the floor. And though he’s sure his friends wouldn’t mind a mess, he doesn’t want to come off as a slob. (Or, he really doesn’t want to see the supposed wrath of his roommate).
Baekhyun and Jongdae arrive after Chanyeol throws his Red Bull can into the recycling bin; Jongdae has the decency to knock on Chanyeol’s door, but Baekhyun pushes the unlocked door open and announces to Chanyeol’s dorm, “Your majesty awaits.”
“Is that your preferred name these days?” Jongdae jokingly asks as he plops down on Chanyeol’s futon.
“I don’t know. Maybe?” Baekhyun smiles and sits beside Jongdae, and Chanyeol watches his friends’ interactions while shaking his head.
Chanyeol sits in the beanbag near the futon and turns around to face his friends. “So, I just got back from guitar practice around twenty minutes ago.”
“Oh yeah? Can you play us any songs yet?” Jongdae asks as he wraps an arm around Baekhyun’s waist and pulls him closer.
Chanyeol stares at them with a raised eyebrow. “No. I know like, one and a half chords.”
Baekhyun snorts, “How do you know half of a chord?”
Chanyeol presses his lips in mock-aggravation. “Well, I looked at the chord chart and sorta-kinda, not really understood, but I’m like halfway there to getting it.” When he sees Baekhyun and Jongdae’s shared unimpressed expressions, he defends, “I swear! I guess I’ll have to text Yixing for help.”
Baekhyun lifts his eyebrows in a pretend seductive way. “You’ve been to one lesson and already have his digits?”
Chanyeol shakes his head and laughs, while subconsciously hoping that it’s dark enough in his dorm to hide his blush. “No, no, it’s not like that. Yixing is just…. He’s really cool. Like, his calm personality makes you want to have a cup of tea with him while you chat about the potential for world peace.”
Jongdae guffaws and squeezes Baekhyun’s side so much the latter cringes in pain. “Chanyeol, you realize that is a date to someone like Zhang Yixing. I don’t know him that well, but he seems like the type who would plan a first date doing volunteer work.”
“He did say he was giving lessons as part of his final assignment and as a good deed to the community,” Chanyeol mumbles, staring at his hands in his lap.
“See?” Jongdae smirks as he leans forward and removes his arm from around Baekhyun. “Let’s play Mario Kart or something. I’m bored.”
“Okay, but I’m Yoshi!” Chanyeol yells and grabs his Wii controllers from the TV table.
“Whatever. I’ll be Mario, and Jongdae can be my Princess Peach.”
Chanyeol looks over at Baekhyun, surprised at his cheeky words, until he averts his eyes to Jongdae when he replies, “I thought you were the majesty here, not me.”
Baekhyun smiles and grabs two beanbags from the pile against the wall and hands one to Jongdae before sitting down on the other. “We’ll reign the kingdom together.”
Chanyeol squints his eyes in disgust before turning on the Wii and letting the bright animation of Mario Kart entice him to finally beat one of the others.
Two hours into their game, Kyungsoo arrives to his shared dorm, and when he sees Baekhyun and Jongdae side by side, screaming at each other for supposedly cheating, he groans and walks into the living room with a blank stare. “It’s nearly 8, and I have an early class tomorrow, a lot of homework tonight, and you guys are way too loud. I trust that you two can see yourselves out.”
“Kyungsoo, you always speak to me as if we're not friends,” Baekhyun laughs as he pulls Jongdae up from the beanbag.
“Because we’re not,” Kyungsoo crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. “We’re acquaintances who happen to have mutual friends and a class together.”
“Cold,” Jongdae jokingly winces and walks with Baekhyun in tow to the door. “Keep us updated on the Yixing dilemma!”
“There’s nothing to keep you updated about!” Chanyeol yells, only for the response to be a slammed door.
Kyungsoo walks into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of water before entering their shared bedroom and sitting at his desk. Chanyeol follows and sits on his own bed, staring at his guitar. Looking at his roommate, who is opening a chemistry book, Chanyeol asks, “Would it be alright for me to practice guitar? I don’t want to be too loud.”
Kyungsoo turns around and looks at him, chuckling. “No, go right ahead. Your guitar won’t bother me; Baekhyun and Jongdae’s screaming matches bother me.”
Chanyeol nods and smiles before unpacking his guitar again and opening his laptop in hopes that he will understand the chord diagrams with his little break from practicing. Finally, he decides to watch a video on reading the charts, and halfway through the video, Chanyeol releases an excited, “Oh!” and pauses the video, returning to the Em chord chart. He places his fingers in the right places and strums; happy with the sound, he moves onto the next chord on Yixing’s list: C. He pulls up the next chart and learns the chord considerably quicker than Em, and he grins to himself about his rapid progress from three hours ago.
After Em and C, He also learns D and Am, and as he is switching from C to D, he strums too forcefully; suddenly, he hears a popping sound and sees his little e string swinging freely.
Chanyeol mumbles, “Dammit,” at the same time that Kyungsoo asks, “What was that?” Sighing, Chanyeol says, “I broke a string.”
Kyungsoo snorts and continues to write in his notebook. “How long have you been playing? A day? And, you’ve already broken a string. Talent.”
Chanyeol picks up his phone and murmurs, “No one asked for your sass, Kyungsoo.”
Chanyeol opens Yixing’s text about the chords he needs to learn and replies with,I think I broke the little e string.
A few minutes later, during which Chanyeol stares pitifully at his guitar, Yixing sends him a text: You think?
No, i know. it’s broken.
okay. come by tomorrow and we’ll see if you can put one on yourself.
Two days after he broke his string, and a day after he stopped by the music department to fix his string (where Yixing told him, “You’re going to bankrupt me if you don’t start getting your own strings!”), Chanyeol has his next guitar lesson with Yixing. Once again, he arrives at 3:30, only to wait outside the building for twenty minutes before entering. When Yixing greets him with his coffee travel mug in hand, the combination of Yixing’s sweet smile and his attire (blue flannel over an obscure band tee along with a pair of white jeans that seemingly mold to the contours of Yixing’s sculpted thighs) makes Chanyeol’s heart flutter. He ushers Chanyeol inside and sets a chair in the middle of the room, with Chanyeol doing the same.
“So, how much do you remember?” Yixing asks as he walks to the storage room for stands.
“A lot, actually. I’ve been practicing, too,” Chanyeol says when Yixing returns and hands him a stand.
“Oh really? Show me what you know.”
Taking a deep breath, Chanyeol plays through the list of chords he knows. Though two chords don’t sound completely, Chanyeol keeps his composure as Yixing’s calm demeanor has been rubbing off on him, and once he finishes, he looks at the other for approval. Yixing smiles widely, causing a deep dimple in his right cheek to form. “That was really good Chanyeol! I didn’t know you had learned that much!”
“Well, I did,” Chanyeol chuckles gawkily.
“Now that you know a lot of basic chords, I think it’s time to teach you how to learn any chord, without having to look up the chord chart. And, once you learn that, you can also find minor chords from major chords.”
Chanyeol tilts his head and asks, “How would I do that?”
“Well,” Yixing eyes brighten, and he scoots forward to the edge of his chair in excitement, “the first thing you have to know is that every fret also represents a musical letter.”
“I thought the frets were just called by numbers, like first fret or second fret.”
Yixing nods his head and smiles, “Yes, that’s true, but they also have corresponding letters. Tell me, what’s the thickest string?”
Yixing hardly finishes his question by the time Chanyeol answers, “Capital E string,” which makes Yixing chuckle and beam.
“Good, that’s right! However, if I push down on the first fret of the capital E string, what note is it?”
Chanyeol looks baffled and shakes his head while laughing, “Honestly, no idea.”
“It would be an F. We went up the chromatic scale one half step, because every fret represents a half step, okay? That’s important when we start constructing chords. When we have a major chord, there is a….” Chanyeol’s attention fades as Yixing drones on about music theory that Chanyeol has no hope for ever understanding, so instead of listening diligently, he prefers to nod every few seconds in pretend-comprehension and to watch Yixing vibrantly discuss a topic he so obviously loves.
When Yixing begins talking about major thirds (or was it minor?), he speaks with his hands, as if that would help Chanyeol understand the complexities of music that will forever be over his head. His eyes gloss over with happiness as he talks about the difference between perfect fourths and perfect fifths, and how that somehow affects the chord drastically. His lips quirk as he retells an incident in his freshman music theory class where he incorrectly identified a major diminished seventh chord as a major augmented seventh chord. Even though Chanyeol clearly doesn’t understand what is so funny or tragic about Yixing’s mistake, he laughs with the other boy as if it was the funniest thing in the world, which Chanyeol believes Yixing thinks it is. The longer he talks about the difference between harmonic minors and melodic minors, the longer Chanyeol has staring at Yixing’s protruding collarbones, and every time Yixing leans forward in excitement, he reveals a more pleasing glimpse of his chest because of his baggy band tank top.
Yixing decides to give examples of the differences among the chords that he had talked about a few minutes earlier (Chanyeol swears there’s nearly a thousand of them). All Chanyeol notices is the way Yixing’s long, relaxed fingers bend and curl over the strings, along with the calm aura that surrounds Yixing even when he plays so confidently. When Chanyeol’s eyes connect with Yixing’s, all of Yixing’s other distracting elements diminish from Chanyeol’s attention; he is purely fascinated with the way the light reflects off of his sparkling eyes, as if his eyes are a pristine lake blessed with the twinkles of light from the sun. He mentally frowns when he realizes that maybe he should leave the literary devices to someone like Jongdae, who has taken various poetry classes.
Yixing finishes his music theory lesson and starts fingerpicking a complicated melody, and after a few beats of just guitar, Yixing sings words that Chanyeol doesn’t understand; however, much like Yixing’s musical teachings earlier, he doesn’t need to understand to be entranced by him. Yixing transitions into a new song where he alternates between creating beats on the body of his guitar and strumming chords without a pick. Chanyeol finds it impossible to not stare in awe at Yixing’s raw talent as his voice follows the musical cues from his guitar, and he reaches notes Chanyeol thought only Baekhyun or Jongdae could hit.
Yixing stops playing suddenly and frowns sheepishly, “I’m sorry; sometimes I get a little distracted when I start playing. Where were we?”
When Chanyeol tells Yixing that they were talking about the chords that he needs to learn (because he didn’t retain anything from his lesson other than how talented Yixing is or how stunning his eyes are), Yixing smiles his lopsided grin that makes his dimples appear, and he tells Chanyeol that now they will focus on improving Chanyeol’s technique and speed.
Chanyeol simply nods and dazedly plays, switching chords when Yixing tells him to. Chanyeol’s daze only increases in the last fifteen minutes of class when Yixing decides to play a couple of songs, and Chanyeol finds that all he can do is stare in pure amazement.
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