This Charming Man for EVERYONE [2/2]
The next guitar lesson has Chanyeol arriving at the same time as the previous two, but this time, instead of waiting outside aimlessly for twenty minutes, Chanyeol walks into the music department at 3:35. When Yixing opens the door, Chanyeol sees that he’s dressed in a baggy sweater with the English phrase, “SWEATER WEATHER” printed on the front. Yixing stares at Chanyeol bemusedly, even after he sees Chanyeol standing there with his wide grin pasted on his face. “You realize you’re twenty-five minutes early, right Chanyeol?”
“Yeah,” Chanyeol nervously plays with the tails of his plaid button down, “but, I was really looking forward to playing today, so I showed up a bit early. Is that alright?”
Yixing beams and waves a hand, telling Chanyeol to come inside. “That’s perfectly fine. Will you set up a chair for me while I go get stands and my guitar?”
Chanyeol nods and sets his guitar case on the floor; by the time Yixing comes back with his guitar and the stands, Chanyeol is already strumming a simple chord pattern while adding a more percussive sound to the song. Right as he sings the first lyric of the song, Yixing sings along with him, “Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you.”
Chanyeol stops playing and looks up from where he was intensely staring at the fretboard to make sure he didn’t make any mistakes. Yixing moves his hands in a way that tells Chanyeol to continue, and as he picks up in the middle of the verse where he stopped, Yixing joins him in not only singing, but also in playing. Yixing’s voice adds the more high-pitched and nasally aspect needed for the song, whereas Chanyeol’s provides a deep harmony that makes the duet feel smooth. All too soon, Chanyeol finishes the song with the delayed final chord and looks at Yixing, seeking approval, like always. Yixing strums a few chords before looking at Chanyeol with his dimpled smile, “Wonderwall? Really, Chanyeol?”
“Come on,” Chanyeol laughingly defends, “isn’t that one of the most essential songs to learn on guitar?”
“That and Stairway to Heaven. I know a lot of people who said that was their first song they ever played,” Yixing scoffs.
“What was yours?” Chanyeol asks as he mindlessly plucks a few strings.
“I don’t really remember, but I bet you probably wouldn’t know it,” Yixing smugly replies.
“I’m sure you remember,” Chanyeol pouts. “And who says I won’t know it?”
“Me, because I’m pretty sure you won’t know it,” Yixing laughs and starts playing a chord pattern filled percussive slaps and beats.
“Try me,” Chanyeol challenges and leans forward in his seat.
“I’m playing it now, if you haven’t noticed,” Yixing says in rhythm with his strumming.
Chanyeol frowns and focuses heavily on the melody Yixing is playing, and he pouts again when he realizes that he doesn’t know the song, even with Yixing now singing along. Yixing stops after the second chorus and smirks, “You don’t know it, do you?”
Chanyeol places his guitar on its stand and crosses his arms, “No fair; it was in Mandarin.”
Yixing deadpans, “Well, duh.”
“I-I- it- how was I supposed to know?”
“Know what?” Yixing lifts an eyebrow and simpers, “That I’m Chinese, or that my first song was obviously in Chinese? Honestly, I felt like both were quite self-evident.”
“Now I know,” Chanyeol says tonelessly and picks up his guitar again.
“If you’re curious, the song is ‘Pu Tong Peng You’ by David Tao. Anyway, today I’m going to teach you about barre chords. Do you know what they are?”
Chanyeol eagerly nods his head and strums a near-perfect F chord. “Yeah, I was going to learn another song, but I needed an F barre chord, and I looked it up and learned it. It’s not very good yet, but I know what it is.”
Yixing looks at Chanyeol in awe before smiling again. “Wow, you’re way ahead of my lesson plans…. Impressive, Chanyeol! You’re really taking the practice thing to heart.”
“Oh, but of course,” Chanyeol boasts proudly and strums his F chord again, and still one or two strings do not sound perfectly.
“Well, since you already know about barre chords…” Yixing bites his lip in thought, and Chanyeol looks away to prevent himself from blushing. “Do you know that they’re based off of your basic chords?”
“What, do you mean, exactly?” Chanyeol asks as he plucks each string in the chord, looking for the string that isn’t sounding completely.
“If you look at the chord, your index finger is barred across the first fret, but all the fingers after that look like the E major chord, which is one of the basic chords you learned.”
Chanyeol is silent for a few seconds as he looks at his fingers stretched over the strings when suddenly everything clicks. His smile widens as he gasps, “Oh! So, is it the same way with E minor too?”
“Yes,” Yixing says as he looks at Chanyeol with pride. “It’s the same with all your basic chords, most commonly E and A with their respective minors.”
“I think I get it!” Chanyeol exclaims as he tries out Yixing’s newest advice. Sure enough, Chanyeol plays an altered version of the chord he played earlier, and Yixing smiles and nods.
Great! You just played an F minor!” Yixing strums quickly down the fretboard before slapping the sound hole and casually playing another song. “You’re a good bit ahead of my other students, so I won’t teach you much more now. We’ll work on sound quality today, so play your F major chord again.”
He does as he’s told, and after Yixing instructs him to arch his hand more on his barre chords, Chanyeol asks, “So, if you’re from China, what are you doing in Korea?”
Yixing points at Chanyeol’s ring finger and tells him to press down harder. “If you haven’t guessed by now, I really like music-”
“No, really,” Chanyeol playfully snorts.
“Yeah, really. And I really want to get a good start in the music industry, so Korea’s the place to be to do that.”
Chanyeol hums in understanding and strums a new barre chord that Yixing taught him. “If you’re getting your start in Korea, does that mean you’ll sing in Mandarin or Korean?”
Yixing presses his lips in thought before smiling. “Both. Maybe even English. Just depends.”
“What genre?”
“Do I not obviously give off the indie vibe?” Yixing chuckles. “That’s what all my friends tell me, anyway. According to them, I’m either all about the indie vibes, or I’m overly hipster. Sometimes both. Most of the time both, because really, they kinda go hand in hand.”
Seeing the “certified recycled” sticker on Yixing’s travel mug, and the fair-trade teabag tag sticking out of the mug, Chanyeol nods in agreement. “I definitely see where they’re coming from….”
Yixing giggles and takes a sip of his tea. “Now, after I’ve explained it for you.”
“So, maybe I didn’t see your self-proclaimed obvious traits, but I do now, and that’s all that matters, right?” Chanyeol defends.
Yixing rolls his eyes lightheartedly and tells him to strengthen his barre before asking, “What about you? What do you want to do?”
“I want to be a photographer,” Chanyeol beams.
“Wow, that’s really cool! Do you have a specific style you like?”
“Right now, I’m in a macro photography class, which is pretty cool, but I think I want to stick with people, not small insects and flowers.”
Yixing chuckles and asks, “So, like portrait photography?”
“Yeah, something like that.” Chanyeol looks away from Yixing and cheekily adds, “You have to promise me that when you’re famous someday, I’ll be the first person to photograph you and do your album photo-shoot.”
Yixing grins widely and enthusiastically agrees, spiraling them into a conversation over landscape areas and poses appropriate for an indie musician, along with Yixing going into further detail about his musical dreams and why he wants to be a musician in the first place, reasons other than his love for music. Even at 5:10, ten minutes after their lesson ended, the two are still talking about the difference between good lyrics and cliché lyrics. It’s not until Yixing receives a call that he bids Chanyeol farewell with a wave as he packs up his guitar. Chanyeol follows suit and leaves a minute before Yixing, with a relentless grin plastered on his face, much like the first day he met Yixing.
Chanyeol arrives early to the next lesson as well, and fifteen minutes into it, Yixing says while playing a tune softly, “Since you can already play what I had planned, is there anything you feel like you need help with? Do you get pull-offs and hammer ons?”
“Yes, to both your questions.” Chanyeol mumbles. “Though, I don’t need help with anything guitar related. I kinda need advice, and you seem like you’d be good at giving it.”
Yixing nods his head. “I’ve been told that before.”
Chanyeol heaves a sigh and considers saying what’s really on his mind, but he decides to give a buffer question or two to see how Yixing will respond. “One of my best friends doesn’t know what he wants to do in life, so he dabbles in this and dabbles in that. He decided on a film major, but I think he doubts whether he likes it.”
“Okay,” Yixing pauses and looks at the ceiling in thought. “First, we need to be somewhat productive today, so I’ll give you advice between chord drills. Play an F until I tell you to change.” Yixing waits for Chanyeol to start playing, and after seven strums, Yixing says as he lays his head on the body of his guitar, “So, is this friend of yours indecisive?”
Chanyeol messes up his strumming pattern slightly when he starts to speak. “Not exactly. I don’t know, maybe? He swears that he’s not, but that he just doesn’t know what he wants and that he doesn’t want to lessen his choices.”
Yixing lifts an eyebrow, “Isn’t that indecisive?”
“I don’t know; I’m not a dictionary,” Chanyeol titters.
“Change to C now,” Yixing instructs. “When I was younger, maybe seventeen or so, I was in a similar dilemma. Of course I wanted to be a singer-songwriter, but part of me wanted to own a coffee shop, and another part wanted to be a professional chef, and another part wanted to be a choreographer. But, my biggest conflict was between being a musician and working with UNICEF.”
“Wow,” Chanyeol’s eyes widen, “those are pretty big dreams. I didn’t realize how serious you were about ‘doing a good deed for the community.’”
“Yeah, well,” Yixing chuckles, “the point is that I had all those choices, and I couldn’t narrow them down for the longest time. So, my advice to him is: find a way that you can do them all, or at least most of them. Now that I’m on my way to being a musician, it is still possible for me to do charity work and community service like I wanted to do with UNICEF; if I make it big, I can buy a coffee shop or open a five star restaurant, and if I ever decide that I don’t want to make music anymore, I still know how to dance, and maybe my name or music would help me score some work choreographing boy bands.”
Seeing Chanyeol’s speechless expression, Yixing tells him to switch to an E minor and continues, “I think that’s what will bring him the most happiness - the idea that you don’t have to settle, that you can still do everything that you want. Nothing limits you but yourself.”
“But,” Chanyeol argues, “haven’t you ever been told that you can’t always get what you want? Doesn’t that limit you?”
“Perhaps,” Yixing taps his fingers on the side of his guitar, “but even then, it’s not the quote that stops you from achieving what you want; it’s you letting the quote tell you that it isn’t possible. The first step to ending indecisiveness and increasing happiness lies in your hands; I firmly believe that.”
“Maybe you should have added ‘Modern-day Confucius’ to your list of dreams,” Chanyeol laughs and switches to a D, as instructed wordlessly through Yixing’s hand motions.
“Maybe,” Yixing giggles and takes a sip of organic peach green tea from his recycled travel mug. “Did you need any other advice?”
“Yeah,” Chanyeol bites his lip and decides to ask his original question. “My other best friend likes someone but doesn’t know what to do about it.”
Yixing chortles and plays a short fingerpicking pattern. “How many best friends do you have?”
“Just two,” Chanyeol defends.
Yixing hums as he looks around the room and distractedly tells Chanyeol to alternate between Am and F every four strums. “Honestly, he just needs to confess. What’s the worst that the person he likes could do?”
Chanyeol mutters and looks away from Yixing, “Never talk to him again.”
Yixing gives Chanyeol’s answer some thought before shaking his head and smiling. “Maybe. I mean, that’s always a possibility. But, the world isn’t filled with only negativity and rejection; however, one has to search the world to see that. I say it’s at least worth a shot.”
Chanyeol stops playing and looks at Yixing in amazement. “How did you get such a positive view of the world? Or better yet, why?”
Yixing points to Chanyeol’s guitar, silently telling him to continue playing. “Negativity eats away at the soul, and what’s the point? What does being negative get you? Seeing the world in a negative light is not only harmful to your health, but also it isn’t a fair representation of the world. Are there bad people? Absolutely. Will some people reject you and hurt you? Of course. But, only giving those people credit for their bad things doesn’t acknowledge all the good that happens in the world every day, and I’d much rather pay attention to that.”
Chanyeol switches to A minor and asks, “How will that affect my friend’s situation though?”
“I’m not saying that thinking positively will get your friend that special someone, but it will certainly help your friend take the initiative to try, and it will give him the ability to pick himself up if he’s rejected. I don’t really know how to woo someone, but I do know that you can’t truly be with someone without confessing to them, and you can’t live a happy life afterwards if you see the world in such a negative manner.”
Chanyeol nods his head, letting the advice sink in. “Are you sure you’re on the right career path? It’s not too late to do philosophy.”
Yixing snorts, “Yes, I’m sure. If I majored in philosophy, I’d be unemployed.”
Chanyeol guffaws, “What happened to seeing the world in a positive light?”
“Chanyeol, there is a big difference between ignorant optimism and positivity.” Yixing claps his hands in laughter.
“Oh, is there?” Chanyeol creates a funky rhythm as he changes from Am to F, making Yixing giggle. “Tell me more about dancer Yixing and chef Yixing.”
Yixing adds a beat and slap combination to Chanyeol’s rhythm and coquettishly grins, eliciting a blush from Chanyeol. “Fine, only if I get to hear more about photographer Chanyeol.”
Chanyeol is practicing guitar alone a few hours after his lesson with Yixing when Baekhyun storms into his dorm room, surprisingly without Jongdae, and shouts, “You called?”
“Yes,” Chanyeol absentmindedly snorts, attention being on the tab sheets on his laptop, “I called like five minutes after my guitar lesson. Why are you just now getting here?”
Baekhyun dramatically sighs and plops down on Chanyeol’s futon beside him. “Do you know how long it took to get rid of Jongdae? I didn’t know whether you wanted him over here because I asked him if you tried to call, and he said that he didn’t get a call from you. Therefore, cue the next hour and a half of me trying to find an excuse to leave our dorm room.”
“How considerate of you,” Chanyeol scoffs, “but, something tells me you weren’t actively looking to leave your boy- I mean Jongdae.”
“Whatever. Why’d you call me in the first place?” Baekhyun asks as he turns on the TV.
“Because I think I may like my guitar instructor.”
“You think,” Baekhyun repeats and idly watches the music show playing. “And you’re telling me this because?”
“I don’t know,” Chanyeol huffs. “I thought you could listen to me and see if I actually like him or not.”
“Something tells me if I have to listen to you fawn over-” Chanyeol’s persistent glare makes Baekhyun stop talking and give acknowledgement that he’s listening.
“Part of me still only wants to have a cup of tea with him and talk about world peace as friends, and that scenario seems so likely now that I know he wanted to work for UNICEF. I don’t even know what to say, Baek; he’s perfect. Like, he’s good at everything, apparently, and he gives really good advice that I’ll have to pass on to you-”
“What advice could he possibly give that I need-”
“And though our guitar lessons are fun, and having tea with him sounds great, I want something more?”
“Why did you make that sound like a question?” Baekhyun sneers and completely looks away from the TV, “It’s obvious that you like him. Get a grip; ask him out, so I never have to listen to this again.”
Chanyeol shoves Baekhyun shoulder and snickers, “Why don’t you take your own advice?”
Chanyeol sees Baekhyun’s eyes widen with surprise before the other boy turns away and stares at the TV again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Chanyeol walks into his guitar lesson at 3:30 with a baggy Christmas-esque sweater rolled up to his elbows and dark wash skinny jeans along with his high-rising Oxford boots - not that he decided to dress particularly nice for anything or anyone. Yixing greets him with his customary smile and even compliments him, “I really like your sweater, Chanyeol!” - which doesn’t make Chanyeol’s heart swoon at all.
As per usual, Yixing tells Chanyeol that he is considerably ahead of his other students, and this time he offers to teach Chanyeol more music theory, since, according to Yixing, he “understood the first lesson so well!” Chanyeol politely declines and says that he’ll take a rain check on the offer, making Yixing’s dimples appear because of his gentle chuckles.
After Yixing asks Chanyeol how his week has been, and if he did anything exciting, Chanyeol softly plays an indie riff on the fifth fret and sneakily asks, “So Yixing, tell me: how would you ask out the girl of your dreams?”
“Why?” Yixing adds chords to Chanyeol’s fingerpicking and laughs, “Well, if you must know, the first thing I’d do is serenade him….” Chanyeol doesn’t hear the next few words because he’s still stuck on the fact that Yixing said him, and his heart certainly doesn’t swoon this time either.
“... What do you think?” Yixing asks, knocking Chanyeol out of his stupor.
“About what?” Chanyeol unintelligently asks.
“Whether an original or cover song is better for serenading.” Yixing giggles and adds an exciting, upbeat rhythm to the chords.
“Seeing as I can’t write songs, I’m going to say a cover song is better, though I’m sure a lot of people would really love an original.”
Yixing hums and nods his head to the inaudible beat. “I wouldn’t stop there though. I’d take him on a date where we could eat gluten free cookies at the cute sweet shop a block from the university, and then we could talk about life and its craziness over a sample of Teavana tea in the mall, and then we’d try on couple outfits at the local thrift store, and of course there would be lots of guitar playing.”
Chanyeol raises his eyebrows in shock at Yixing’s clearly well-thought-out answer and faintly blushes. “Wow…. That’s incredible descriptive. If you’ve obviously thought this far ahead for someone else, how would you like to be asked out?
Yixing shrugs and dimples. “Well, the same way I suppose. All of those things sound really appealing to me.”
Chanyeol snorts and stares at his feet. “Don’t believe in the ‘opposites attract’ thing?”
“I’m breaking the cliché sayings one by one,” Yixing giggles. When he sees Chanyeol’s puzzled gaze, he elaborates, “Remember last lesson? You said, ‘you can’t always get what you want,’ and I debunked that. Here I am debunking this one too.”
With Chanyeol’s continued silence, Yixing continues, “Anyway, it’s not that I don’t believe the statement is true,” Yixing reasons. “If someone is completely different than me, that wouldn’t stop me from dating him, but I’d like to date someone who has the same interests me.”
“Oh,” Chanyeol mumbles, “so, have you found someone with the same interests as you?”
Yixing puffs his lips and shakes his head with a goofy laugh. “Not exactly.”
Chanyeol feels the rapid pounding of his chest, and he chooses to ignore it when he plasters his widest smile and says, “You know, maybe I’m ready for that music theory lesson.”
“Really?” Yixing enthusiastically says, “I really love making people understand music! Let’s start with the Circle of Fourths, and that can help you form chords….” Chanyeol, despite his heart hurting from an unintentional/unknown rejection by Yixing, can’t help but to stare at Yixing’s clearly entranced eyes and bubbly persona. Even though he knows he won’t remember one thing Yixing said, he still nods and smiles accordingly, as if he’s actually listening instead of watching Yixing’s eyes crinkle in joy and excitement after every sentence about sharps and flats.
After his guitar lesson, Chanyeol races to Baekhyun and Jongdae's shared dorm room in hopes that Baekhyun would be there to listen to his woes again, but when Jongdae opens the door with a confused expression while rubbing his eyes, Chanyeol inwardly sighs and supposes that Jongdae will do.
"What are you doing here?" Jongdae slurs.
"I wanted to hangout. Chat and stuff, you know? Is it just you, or is Baek here too?"
Jongdae shakes his head and walks into his dorm, Chanyeol in tow. He points to the kitchen area, silently asking Chanyeol if he wants a snack, and when Chanyeol says, "no," Jongdae mumbles some incoherent words and plops down on a pile of blankets on his couch, making Chanyeol sit on the floor in front of him.
Noticing that Jongdae hasn't moved in nearly a whole minute, Chanyeol whispers, "Jongdae, are you asleep?"
"No," he groans, "but you did wake me up from my precious nap with your incessant knocking and calling my phone."
"Oh, sorry," Chanyeol says, not remotely apologetic.
Jongdae slaps Chanyeol on the back of the head. "And, what exactly did you want to 'chat' about?"
"Do you think Yixing and I are a good match?"
"Not this," Jongdae snorts. "Baekhyun already told me about the time you finally admitted your feelings,” Jongdae dramatically emphasizes with a groan. “And sure, you guys would be great together. Can I go back to sleep?”
“You’re no help,” Chanyeol leans his head back on the couch and Jongdae boredly plays with his hair. “Yixing said he prefers dating guys who are similar to him, and I don’t know if I qualify.” As an afterthought, Chanyeol whispers, “I don’t think he thinks I qualify either.”
“I’m not sure I’m getting what you’re trying to say.”
“What I mean is, do you think I’m…. Hipster enough?” Chanyeol hears Jongdae’s intake of breath only to be exhaled as a hearty chuckle. “Before you laugh, I’m being really serious. Like, he has these lofty, worldly dreams of reaching people of all nations with his music and probably his charity work, and I’m just,” Chanyeol huffs and runs a hand through his bangs, “I’m just Chanyeol.”
Chanyeol can’t see Jongdae, but he assumes the other has one eyebrow curved with a slight grin. “Is being Chanyeol not enough? You drink fair trade coffee these days. You buy cruelty free beauty supplies. Hell, you even drink organic, herbal types of tea while you wonder how you can help the world through photography,” Jongdae takes a pause and flicks Chanyeol on his right temple. “Yes, you’re insufferably hipster, and Yixing has only made you worse. Ask him out.”
Chanyeol turns around to look at Jongdae, eyes full of hope. “Are you serious? You really believe that?”
“Yes, I believe that. You should too with the ridiculous amount of evidence I provided. Now that you’re off your pity party for the day, leave me alone so that I can go back to sleep before Baek gets here.”
Chanyeol stands and looks at Jongdae’s oddly contoured body only halfway covered with blankets by this point. “Whatever. Thanks for the help.”
Chanyeol hears more incoherent mumbles before he walks to the front door and lets himself out, all with an imaginary spring in his walk because of the overwhelming excitement he feels about asking Yixing out at the next lesson.
For the first time since he started the guitar lessons with Yixing, Chanyeol is late.
Between having a 1 o’clock class that ended late, and spending more than an hour and a half staring in the mirror at outfit after outfit (before finally choosing a navy blue-themed plaid button-down under a solid white sweater, along with simple khaki skinny jeans and a ragged pair of Converses - he didn’t want to seem like he dressed up for the occasion), Chanyeol realizes that it’s 3:45, and he hasn’t left his dorm room yet. He nearly forgets his guitar in an effort to leave quickly, and by the time he ends up across campus at the music department, it’s already 4:15.
He slows down from his slight jog when he approaches their practice room, and he gently knocks before twisting the handle and opening the door. As he enters the room, he sees Yixing with his guitar in his lap, surrounded by a laptop and various sheets of paper. Chanyeol watches him like a fly on the wall for at least a minute, and during that time all Yixing does is play a fingerpicking pattern or two and hum a few melodies. Just as Chanyeol steps forward in hopes that Yixing will notice his presence, Yixing starts strumming a similar chord progression Chanyeol has heard before, and he assumes that Yixing wrote it himself because now he is singing with his delicately soft voice in Mandarin. All too quickly, his gently-sung lyrics transform into harshly articulated power vocals in English, before calming down again and ending sweetly with a G major barre.
Chanyeol decides to grab a chair while Yixing, still unaware of his presence, looks over his papers, and when he sets the chair down across from Yixing, the other man jumps in slight fear before relaxing and showing his dimpled smile. “Oh, hey Chanyeol. You’re really late. I was almost worried that you forgot!”
Chanyeol nervously fidgets in his seat and unpacks his guitar, “No, I couldn’t forget.”
“Well that’s good!” Yixing places his guitar on his stand so that he can close his laptop and place it along with his papers into his laptop sleeve.
“I’ll get you a stand; then, we can get started. Alright?” Chanyeol simply nods and repeats a mantra silently, mentally preparing himself for what he planned to do next.
Yixing returns less than a minute later with a stand that he places beside his own; he grabs his guitar and sits back down, still smiling, “So, for today, I was thinking that we could-”
“Actually,” Chanyeol interrupts, voice rising in pitch ever so slightly, “I wanted to show you something. Is that alright?”
Seeing Yixing’s nod of approval, Chanyeol plays a few chords to make sure his guitar is in tune before he starts fingerpicking a complicated intro to a song Yixing offhandedly admitted to liking a few lessons ago.
“Deng dai,” Chanyeol smoothly sings in Mandarin as he plays a strumming-slapping rhythm, and though Chanyeol doesn’t notice because he’s pointedly staring at the floor, Yixing’s eyes resemble saucers at Chanyeol’s choice of song.
Chanyeol is sure he has mispronounced a considerable amount of the words because his only help was from Jongdae (who, in Chanyeol’s opinion, says he knows more Mandarin than he really does) the night before, but he hopes Yixing will at least understand the gist of what he’s singing.
Chanyeol forgets the second half of the second verse completely, so he decides to end the song there with the final, resolving chord and a repetition of what Chanyeol knows is the last English line of the song, “I just can't be your friend.”
Chanyeol looks up from where he was staring at his and Yixing’s matching Converses when he hears Yixing clapping and chanting, “Bravo, bravo!” over and over. When he finally stops clapping, Yixing smiles so widely that Chanyeol swears he sees a smaller dimple forming below Yixing’s incredibly prevalent one, “That was so good, Chanyeol! I’m so proud that you’ve learned to play so well! In fact, I’m really honored that I had even the slightest bit to do with that.”
Chanyeol feels his heart sink as he stares at Yixing blankly. “You didn’t realize why I played it?”
Yixing puffs his cheeks in confusion and Chanyeol wants to groan because the other looks so cute with his pouty lips and bemused eyes. “Because you wanted to show me that you can play pretty difficult fingerpicking parts?”
Chanyeol holds back a heavy sigh and bites his lip, “No, Yixing. I didn’t play that to show you how much I’ve improved. I played that to tell you that I like you and want to take you out on a hipster date at the coffee shop where I’ll take a professional grade selca of us, and after that, we’ll stop at a vegan cafe and get something sweet like gluten-free brownies while we talk about world peace, and then we’ll go to the park where we’ll busk and donate the money to UNICEF or something. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
For the next agonizing thirty seconds wherein Yixing feels the need to play an indie guitar riff, Chanyeol thinks his heart, despite rapidly beating in his chest, has been ripped out and left for dead by the adorable, oblivious, Chinese man in front of him. Yixing ends his riff with two notes in a minor third interval, until he notices the sad resolution and adds, from what Chanyeol can hear, a major chord, which makes the ending sound so much happier. Yixing doesn’t say anything after he finishes his riff, which gives time for Chanyeol to congratulate himself on remembering so much music theory, so as to prevent himself from throwing a pity party from wordlessly being rejected. Just after Chanyeol’s imaginary clap on the back, Yixing says, “I think it depends on the coffee shop in mind. We have to stick to the hipster status quo, meaning no to Starbucks.” Chanyeol wishes he could laugh at Yixing’s obvious attempt to lighten the mood, but he is so amazed by the fact that Yixing is even considering a date with him in the first place.
“I’ll hold you to that professional selca thing. I’m expecting cute polaroids to pin on my wall.”
Chanyeol nods enthusiastically and starts to say something, only for Yixing to continue, “If we’re going to the vegan cafe down the street, that changes things! I really like their lemon raspberry cake.”
Yixing looks from Chanyeol’s guitar to Chanyeol and laughs. “And, if we’re going to busk in the park, leave the singing in Mandarin to me. Your voice is lovely, but your Mandarin is not. Either sing in Korean or don’t sing at all.”
Yixing starts packing up his guitar, and when he notices Chanyeol’s bewildered expression, he asks, “Are we not going now? I’m sure you could miss a day of guitar practice if you can play Pu Tong Peng You with such ease.”
Chanyeol shakes himself out of his slight stupor and grins his teeth-rich smile. When Yixing grabs their stands and takes them to the storage closet, Chanyeol sends a quick message to Jongdae and Baekhyun: success.
Yixing, as Chanyeol now notices, is dressed in a white tank-top with English words on it that he doesn’t want to take the time to understand, along with a dark red and blue-themed plaid shirt laced through the loops of his black skinny jeans and, of course, his and Chanyeol’s matching white Converses. Yixing grins when he sees Chanyeol’s eyes giving him a once-over, and he walks over to Chanyeol and playfully snaps his fingers in front of his eyes, saying, “Come on; if you take too long there won’t be any couples in the park to donate to our cause.”
Chanyeol giggles and proceeds to pack up his stuff and stand. The two of them leave the lesson with their chairs still in the middle of the classroom, but since he assumes that Yixing doesn’t care, Chanyeol doesn’t care either. Chanyeol also finds that he doesn’t care that his phone just vibrated definitely more than two times; besides, it’s not as if he could check his phone if he wanted to, with his guitar in his right hand, and Yixing’s hand in his left.
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