CHINGUX 2014: game changer (1/1) for EVERYONE
Title: game changer
Author: sardothien
Recipient: EVERYONE
Pairing/Focus: chanyeol/kyungsoo
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Brief violence in a flashback
Length: 2432
Summary: Even back then, the days of dream sharing were numbered.
The call comes on a Wednesday.
Kyungsoo’s phone rings as he’s stepping off Line 2 onto Sinsa station-it’s some 4men song that he doesn’t know the name of because Baekhyun had changed it one night when he wasn’t looking-and for about five seconds Kyungsoo considers letting it ring. He’s not sure what makes him reach into his pocket to pull it out. Kyungsoo deftly ducks out of the incoming subway foot traffic, peering at the screen. Unknown number.
One more ring and the call would go to voicemail. He presses answer.
“Do Kyungsoo,” he says curtly.
And then he hears it.
“Kyungsoo.”
That voice.
“It’s...... me.”
Kyungsoo closes his eyes, focusing on his calming exercise, the slow in and out of his breath. Inhale, exhale. Breathe.
“Kyungsoo-are you there?”
“Chanyeol,” he answers evenly. Even his name feels foreign, acrid and bitter in his mouth. “Why are you calling me?”
“Please, Kyungsoo.” Park Chanyeol sounds exactly the same as he did three years ago-stubborn, reckless, desperate. He's saying the same thing now. Kyungsoo, please, don’t leave me, and here it is again, the same throaty bass rumbling in his ear, begging him.
Kyungsoo grips his cell phone tighter in his hands. People are pushing past him now so he lets himself be carried along by the surge of the crowd. Chanyeol’s breathing is low and static-laced in his ear.
“I told you I’m not interested anymore, Chanyeol.” There is a whisper of an inhale. A feeling that he’s being watched. Phantom hands at the nape of his neck. “I gave up that life three years ago.”
At the other end of the line, Chanyeol makes a sad, distant noise in his throat, and it’s hard to ignore the way it sends a panging, coursing hurt through his body.
For a moment, he hesitates, finger hovering over the end button.
“Kyungsoo?”
Then he hangs up.
It had been an operation meant for five people.
"Gather around boys," Chanyeol calls, sweeping into the living room of Jongdae's high rise with five manilla files in hand. "I’ve got us a game-changer.”
Kyungsoo is the only one who looks up. The team had been the same as it'd always been-Yixing, Minseok, Jongdae, himself, and Chanyeol. None of them are really paying attention to Chanyeol at this point, and Kyungsoo knows why.
“What’s the point?” Jongdae mutters dryly at his ceiling. “The days of dream-sharing are numbered, Chanyeol.”
Ever since the Cobb-Fischer ordeal had been exposed-making newspaper headlines across the world in the process-the United Nations had issued an order for all rogue PASIV devices to be tracked down and destroyed. Inception was strictly prohibited, extraction only permissible under supervision of the international control council.
Their team was one of the few remaining with an unregistered, untraceable PASIV device. There were still a few teams that could be hired under the utmost discretion, but none of them even came close in skill or integrity.
Chanyeol’s smile is deadly. “I think it’s time that we put Minseok’s Somnacin to the test.”
The rest of them immediately stop talking. Minseok-who’d been playing a game on his cellphone-stares at him, bewildered. “Come again?”
Dream-sharing relied heavily on Somnacin, the drug used to build mental links between dreamers during lucidity. The international control council’s official drug was limited up to two levels of dreams. Yusuf, the Chemist from the Cobb-Fischer case, had manufactured a version that allowed up to three. But a year ago, Minseok had figured out a way to get that number to four levels of dreams, nestled inside one another like Russian nesting dolls.
“Minseok’s compound hasn’t been tested yet,” Kyungsoo replies dryly. “We’d have to conduct closed trials before determining if it’s safe to use in the field.”
“You don’t understand,” Chanyeol breathes. He fans the files out on Jongdae’s coffee table. “This mission calls for a very complex vertical structure. We need that kind of depth if we’re to do this properly.”
Yixing wastes no time in snatching up one of the manilla folders, flipping through the briefing documents with interest. “Our client is Samdae Incorporated?”
“Samdae?” Now Jongdae’s definitely interested, sitting up curiously to take a folder for himself. “As in the tech giant?”
Chanyeol smiles. “The one and only.”
Kyungsoo frowns, already half-way through the briefing papers. If they accept, they’d be targeting the head engineer of SunCorp, Samdae’s biggest competitor in mainland China.
“They better not be asking for inception, Chanyeol,” Minseok murmurs. “We could get thrown in jail.”
“Well, it’s not like we’re walking on daisies right now either,” Jongdae points out. “Having an unregistered PASIV device and all.”
Chanyeol shook his head. “They don’t want inception. They want extraction.”
Minseok’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline. “What does Samdae want?”
“That would be the question of the night,” Chanyeol says with a secretive grin. “As it stands, no one knows.”
Kyungsoo frowns. “And that’s why they need us.”
Yixing blinks. “I’m sorry?”
“Whatever SunCorp’s next product is-” Kyungsoo explains, feeling the beginnings of a migraine coming on. “That’s what Samdae wants. They want the next iPhone. The game changer.”
“Wow,” Minseok says, impressed. “That’s kind of brilliantly simple.”
“So.” Chanyeol stands up to peer around the room at all of them.
“Are we in?”
Kyungsoo gets the text about a week later.
It’s Chanyeol. Call me.
When he hits delete, Kyungsoo doesn’t even blink.
“MOVE!!” Chanyeol screams, elbowing Jongdae out of the way to kneel at Yixing’s side, face as white as a sheet. “Damn it,” he swears, tearing strips of his shirt to press against the wound in Yixing’s side, gushing bright red blood. “Yixing, keep your eyes open-”
Yixing hisses as Chanyeol’s fingers graze against the bullet wound in his side. “Easier said than done.”
“Oh my god.” Jongdae starts to tremble uncontrollably. “Oh my god, oh my god-”
“Calm down,” Kyungsoo says in a voice that sounded a lot calmer than he felt. Already, Yixing was losing too much blood. “What happened?”
“He-he got shot,” Jongdae stammers. “Lu Han’s got his subconscious militarized.”
“Militarized?” Chanyeol lets out a hoarse shout of laughter. “Whose genius idea was it to leave our best mark on the first level?”
“We planned it this way together,” Kyungsoo bites out through gritted teeth. “We all agreed that Minseok would stay up there to start the kick.”
“Go ahead guys,” Yixing murmurs, trying to sit up and immediately making a pained face. Jongdae pushes his shoulder back down with a strangled noise. “Just proceed as we planned. I’ll stay on the second level and Kyungsoo can go down one more. I think I’m okay.”
“You’re not staying up here by yourself,” Chanyeol protests. “Not be pessimistic, but if you die while we’re dreaming, there won’t be anyone to sync with Minseok.”
Jongdae laughs nervously. “Well, Yixing definitely can’t go down another level either, because if he dies up here anyway, we’d still have a problem.”
“I’m not going to die,” Yixing whispers with a weak smile. “Go on-”
“Someone will have to stay up here,” Chanyeol says firmly. “And two of us will continue downwards.”
Kyungsoo can see the way Chanyeol is eyeing Jongdae, trying to make his point, and clenches his teeth. “I’ll stay,” he says immediately.
“Absolutely not,” Chanyeol snaps. “You’re coming with me.”
“We have to follow the plan,” Kyungsoo hisses, already feeling the dread growing in his belly. “Which means that I stay on the second level.”
“Kyungsoo, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the plan kind of went to shit when our architect got shot,” Chanyeol fires back. “And without Yixing, I can’t risk this mission by going down there with a guy like Jongdae who doesn’t know how to keep his fucking cool.”
For a few moments, Kyungsoo doesn’t reply.
“We need to get moving,” Jongdae says in a very small voice.
"Stop calling me," Kyungsoo says into his cell phone the third time it rings with an unidentified caller ID. "I'm not interested in whatever you're trying to proposition me into."
"But-"
Kyungsoo cuts Chanyeol off in the middle of his sentence. Out of habit, his fingers brush over the spot on his abdomen where the bullet had gone through, and sighs.
It had been unavoidable-Chanyeol tracking Lu Han through the streets of Hong Kong, and Kyungsoo following close behind. After a few minutes, Chanyeol had broken into a run, having spotted Lu Han up ahead. Looking back, neither of them could have prevented the projection from slamming into Kyungsoo from behind as he’d tried to follow, cold muzzle pressed into his stomach, or the muffled crack that seemed so terribly loud even amidst the busy night life of Hong Kong.
But nothing could have prepared Kyungsoo for the immense, all-encompassing pain, the force of the gun expelling the bullet out from the other side of his body, the way his legs seemed to crumple.
He’d hit the ground knees-first, blood taste tangy and metallic in his mouth.
Up ahead, Chanyeol was still running after Lu Han.
Kyungsoo gets off the subway at his stop with a strange feeling in his gut. It’d been two days since he last heard from Chanyeol, yet something still didn’t feel quite right.
He’s not expecting to see Chanyeol waiting in front of his door, wringing at his wrists like he’s got too many secrets to spill and not enough ears to listen. Kyungsoo freezes in his tracks, watching him pace back and forth in front of his threshold, and something in his heart hurts. He makes to turn around, but Chanyeol looks up at the squeak of his shoes.
For a second, they lock eyes-steely gray boring into bright, clear brown-and Kyungsoo can feel the hurt all over again. The betrayal, the deep, resounding pain that had taken up residence his body since the night Kyungsoo took a bullet in the stomach for reasons that couldn't be justified. The entry wound had long healed and scarred over, but the memory remained-poignant, lingering.
“How could you not have noticed that I was shot, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo spits, packing shirts into a suitcase.
Chanyeol sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry-Kyungsoo-I swear to god I didn’t notice-I was just so focused on Lu Han-”
“Yeah, well.” Kyungsoo snaps the lid of his suitcase shut. “That’s always the most important thing to you, isn’t it? The mission. The subject. Two members of your team get shot, no big deal. I don’t want to risk my reputation because of one failed mission, because I’m Park Chanyeol.”
“I’m sorry!” Chanyeol cries, grabbing onto his arm as Kyungsoo tries to push past him towards the door of his apartment. “It was never about the mission, Kyungsoo-”
Kyungsoo pauses, one hand on the door knob. “I don’t know that, Chanyeol. I can’t do this life anymore-I’m not made to live like this.”
“Kyungsoo, please, stay,” Chanyeol begs, fingers tightening in Kyungsoo’s shirt sleeve. “I can’t-the team needs you. Dream-sharing isn’t possible without a point man.”
Dreams aren’t meant to last forever. Eventually, one has to wake up.
Kyungsoo shakes his head and tugs his arm free of Chanyeol’s grip.
“I quit dream-sharing.”
From behind him, Chanyeol’s voice echoes through the hallway, his head.
“Kyungsoo-”
-Don’t go.
Chanyeol takes a step forward. “Kyungsoo-please. Please don’t leave.”
Kyungsoo almost doesn’t want to give him a chance. That chance had come and gone, and trying to salvage the moment now, three years later, was more than Kyungsoo could bear. Even as his hands curl into fists at his sides, Kyungsoo finds that he can’t walk away, no matter how much he wants to.
“Why?” Kyungsoo asks finally. “Why did you force me?”
For a long time, Chanyeol is silent. “You don’t understand,” he says quietly. “I needed you.”
Kyungsoo looks at him seriously in the eyes. “You know my skills are nothing down there. Taking Jongdae would have been a much better option.”
“But you’re my partner, Kyungsoo, you know me inside and out-”
“So you should have known!” Kyungsoo hisses. He doesn’t remember when his hands started shaking. “You should have known how much I hate it down there. I’m useless down there, but you forced me-”
The longer Chanyeol stares at him, smiling this blank, sad smile, the more Kyungsoo’s chest aches. “You’re not useless, Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol tells him softly. “You do so much for me-don’t you know?”
Kyungsoo’s eyebrows knit together. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Chanyeol’s voice sounds almost desperate now, pleading, and it grates on Kyungsoo’s ears as much as it makes his heart thud violent against his ribs. “You’re more than my partner, Kyungsoo. You’re my best friend. I was being selfish. I wanted you with me.”
“That doesn’t excuse anything,” Kyungsoo says bitterly. “That excuses nothing.”
“I know,” Chanyeol whispers. “And I’m sorry. You don’t know how much I’ve beat myself up over it, the fact that you got hurt because of it. I feel so fucking guilty, Kyungsoo.”
It’s way too easy, Kyungsoo thinks, to fall back in their same old routine. Chanyeol, who is bright and shining and brimming with brilliance, overpowering small and unassuming Kyungsoo. It’d be easier to just walk away and pretend that this conversation never happened.
“Why did it take you so long to come after me?” Kyungsoo asks softly.
Chanyeol grins weakly, and there’s a swooping feeling in his belly. “You can be frustratingly hard to find when you want to be, Kyungsoo. Especially if you don’t want to be found.”
He looks up as Chanyeol steps closer, and there it is again-phantom hands on the back of his neck, a whisper of an inhale.
“You don’t dream anymore, do you?”
Chanyeol’s voice, low and static-laced in his ear.
“Come dream with us again, Kyungsoo. Come back to the team.”
A very distinct feeling that he’s being watched. Or, perhaps, maybe it was him who wasn’t watching closely enough.
Kyungsoo lets go of the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“Okay,” he says, more to himself than anyone else. “Okay.”
Author: sardothien
Recipient: EVERYONE
Pairing/Focus: chanyeol/kyungsoo
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Brief violence in a flashback
Length: 2432
Summary: Even back then, the days of dream sharing were numbered.
The call comes on a Wednesday.
Kyungsoo’s phone rings as he’s stepping off Line 2 onto Sinsa station-it’s some 4men song that he doesn’t know the name of because Baekhyun had changed it one night when he wasn’t looking-and for about five seconds Kyungsoo considers letting it ring. He’s not sure what makes him reach into his pocket to pull it out. Kyungsoo deftly ducks out of the incoming subway foot traffic, peering at the screen. Unknown number.
One more ring and the call would go to voicemail. He presses answer.
“Do Kyungsoo,” he says curtly.
And then he hears it.
“Kyungsoo.”
That voice.
“It’s...... me.”
Kyungsoo closes his eyes, focusing on his calming exercise, the slow in and out of his breath. Inhale, exhale. Breathe.
“Kyungsoo-are you there?”
“Chanyeol,” he answers evenly. Even his name feels foreign, acrid and bitter in his mouth. “Why are you calling me?”
“Please, Kyungsoo.” Park Chanyeol sounds exactly the same as he did three years ago-stubborn, reckless, desperate. He's saying the same thing now. Kyungsoo, please, don’t leave me, and here it is again, the same throaty bass rumbling in his ear, begging him.
Kyungsoo grips his cell phone tighter in his hands. People are pushing past him now so he lets himself be carried along by the surge of the crowd. Chanyeol’s breathing is low and static-laced in his ear.
“I told you I’m not interested anymore, Chanyeol.” There is a whisper of an inhale. A feeling that he’s being watched. Phantom hands at the nape of his neck. “I gave up that life three years ago.”
At the other end of the line, Chanyeol makes a sad, distant noise in his throat, and it’s hard to ignore the way it sends a panging, coursing hurt through his body.
For a moment, he hesitates, finger hovering over the end button.
“Kyungsoo?”
Then he hangs up.
It had been an operation meant for five people.
"Gather around boys," Chanyeol calls, sweeping into the living room of Jongdae's high rise with five manilla files in hand. "I’ve got us a game-changer.”
Kyungsoo is the only one who looks up. The team had been the same as it'd always been-Yixing, Minseok, Jongdae, himself, and Chanyeol. None of them are really paying attention to Chanyeol at this point, and Kyungsoo knows why.
“What’s the point?” Jongdae mutters dryly at his ceiling. “The days of dream-sharing are numbered, Chanyeol.”
Ever since the Cobb-Fischer ordeal had been exposed-making newspaper headlines across the world in the process-the United Nations had issued an order for all rogue PASIV devices to be tracked down and destroyed. Inception was strictly prohibited, extraction only permissible under supervision of the international control council.
Their team was one of the few remaining with an unregistered, untraceable PASIV device. There were still a few teams that could be hired under the utmost discretion, but none of them even came close in skill or integrity.
Chanyeol’s smile is deadly. “I think it’s time that we put Minseok’s Somnacin to the test.”
The rest of them immediately stop talking. Minseok-who’d been playing a game on his cellphone-stares at him, bewildered. “Come again?”
Dream-sharing relied heavily on Somnacin, the drug used to build mental links between dreamers during lucidity. The international control council’s official drug was limited up to two levels of dreams. Yusuf, the Chemist from the Cobb-Fischer case, had manufactured a version that allowed up to three. But a year ago, Minseok had figured out a way to get that number to four levels of dreams, nestled inside one another like Russian nesting dolls.
“Minseok’s compound hasn’t been tested yet,” Kyungsoo replies dryly. “We’d have to conduct closed trials before determining if it’s safe to use in the field.”
“You don’t understand,” Chanyeol breathes. He fans the files out on Jongdae’s coffee table. “This mission calls for a very complex vertical structure. We need that kind of depth if we’re to do this properly.”
Yixing wastes no time in snatching up one of the manilla folders, flipping through the briefing documents with interest. “Our client is Samdae Incorporated?”
“Samdae?” Now Jongdae’s definitely interested, sitting up curiously to take a folder for himself. “As in the tech giant?”
Chanyeol smiles. “The one and only.”
Kyungsoo frowns, already half-way through the briefing papers. If they accept, they’d be targeting the head engineer of SunCorp, Samdae’s biggest competitor in mainland China.
“They better not be asking for inception, Chanyeol,” Minseok murmurs. “We could get thrown in jail.”
“Well, it’s not like we’re walking on daisies right now either,” Jongdae points out. “Having an unregistered PASIV device and all.”
Chanyeol shook his head. “They don’t want inception. They want extraction.”
Minseok’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline. “What does Samdae want?”
“That would be the question of the night,” Chanyeol says with a secretive grin. “As it stands, no one knows.”
Kyungsoo frowns. “And that’s why they need us.”
Yixing blinks. “I’m sorry?”
“Whatever SunCorp’s next product is-” Kyungsoo explains, feeling the beginnings of a migraine coming on. “That’s what Samdae wants. They want the next iPhone. The game changer.”
“Wow,” Minseok says, impressed. “That’s kind of brilliantly simple.”
“So.” Chanyeol stands up to peer around the room at all of them.
“Are we in?”
Kyungsoo gets the text about a week later.
It’s Chanyeol. Call me.
When he hits delete, Kyungsoo doesn’t even blink.
“MOVE!!” Chanyeol screams, elbowing Jongdae out of the way to kneel at Yixing’s side, face as white as a sheet. “Damn it,” he swears, tearing strips of his shirt to press against the wound in Yixing’s side, gushing bright red blood. “Yixing, keep your eyes open-”
Yixing hisses as Chanyeol’s fingers graze against the bullet wound in his side. “Easier said than done.”
“Oh my god.” Jongdae starts to tremble uncontrollably. “Oh my god, oh my god-”
“Calm down,” Kyungsoo says in a voice that sounded a lot calmer than he felt. Already, Yixing was losing too much blood. “What happened?”
“He-he got shot,” Jongdae stammers. “Lu Han’s got his subconscious militarized.”
“Militarized?” Chanyeol lets out a hoarse shout of laughter. “Whose genius idea was it to leave our best mark on the first level?”
“We planned it this way together,” Kyungsoo bites out through gritted teeth. “We all agreed that Minseok would stay up there to start the kick.”
“Go ahead guys,” Yixing murmurs, trying to sit up and immediately making a pained face. Jongdae pushes his shoulder back down with a strangled noise. “Just proceed as we planned. I’ll stay on the second level and Kyungsoo can go down one more. I think I’m okay.”
“You’re not staying up here by yourself,” Chanyeol protests. “Not be pessimistic, but if you die while we’re dreaming, there won’t be anyone to sync with Minseok.”
Jongdae laughs nervously. “Well, Yixing definitely can’t go down another level either, because if he dies up here anyway, we’d still have a problem.”
“I’m not going to die,” Yixing whispers with a weak smile. “Go on-”
“Someone will have to stay up here,” Chanyeol says firmly. “And two of us will continue downwards.”
Kyungsoo can see the way Chanyeol is eyeing Jongdae, trying to make his point, and clenches his teeth. “I’ll stay,” he says immediately.
“Absolutely not,” Chanyeol snaps. “You’re coming with me.”
“We have to follow the plan,” Kyungsoo hisses, already feeling the dread growing in his belly. “Which means that I stay on the second level.”
“Kyungsoo, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the plan kind of went to shit when our architect got shot,” Chanyeol fires back. “And without Yixing, I can’t risk this mission by going down there with a guy like Jongdae who doesn’t know how to keep his fucking cool.”
For a few moments, Kyungsoo doesn’t reply.
“We need to get moving,” Jongdae says in a very small voice.
"Stop calling me," Kyungsoo says into his cell phone the third time it rings with an unidentified caller ID. "I'm not interested in whatever you're trying to proposition me into."
"But-"
Kyungsoo cuts Chanyeol off in the middle of his sentence. Out of habit, his fingers brush over the spot on his abdomen where the bullet had gone through, and sighs.
It had been unavoidable-Chanyeol tracking Lu Han through the streets of Hong Kong, and Kyungsoo following close behind. After a few minutes, Chanyeol had broken into a run, having spotted Lu Han up ahead. Looking back, neither of them could have prevented the projection from slamming into Kyungsoo from behind as he’d tried to follow, cold muzzle pressed into his stomach, or the muffled crack that seemed so terribly loud even amidst the busy night life of Hong Kong.
But nothing could have prepared Kyungsoo for the immense, all-encompassing pain, the force of the gun expelling the bullet out from the other side of his body, the way his legs seemed to crumple.
He’d hit the ground knees-first, blood taste tangy and metallic in his mouth.
Up ahead, Chanyeol was still running after Lu Han.
Kyungsoo gets off the subway at his stop with a strange feeling in his gut. It’d been two days since he last heard from Chanyeol, yet something still didn’t feel quite right.
He’s not expecting to see Chanyeol waiting in front of his door, wringing at his wrists like he’s got too many secrets to spill and not enough ears to listen. Kyungsoo freezes in his tracks, watching him pace back and forth in front of his threshold, and something in his heart hurts. He makes to turn around, but Chanyeol looks up at the squeak of his shoes.
For a second, they lock eyes-steely gray boring into bright, clear brown-and Kyungsoo can feel the hurt all over again. The betrayal, the deep, resounding pain that had taken up residence his body since the night Kyungsoo took a bullet in the stomach for reasons that couldn't be justified. The entry wound had long healed and scarred over, but the memory remained-poignant, lingering.
“How could you not have noticed that I was shot, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo spits, packing shirts into a suitcase.
Chanyeol sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry-Kyungsoo-I swear to god I didn’t notice-I was just so focused on Lu Han-”
“Yeah, well.” Kyungsoo snaps the lid of his suitcase shut. “That’s always the most important thing to you, isn’t it? The mission. The subject. Two members of your team get shot, no big deal. I don’t want to risk my reputation because of one failed mission, because I’m Park Chanyeol.”
“I’m sorry!” Chanyeol cries, grabbing onto his arm as Kyungsoo tries to push past him towards the door of his apartment. “It was never about the mission, Kyungsoo-”
Kyungsoo pauses, one hand on the door knob. “I don’t know that, Chanyeol. I can’t do this life anymore-I’m not made to live like this.”
“Kyungsoo, please, stay,” Chanyeol begs, fingers tightening in Kyungsoo’s shirt sleeve. “I can’t-the team needs you. Dream-sharing isn’t possible without a point man.”
Dreams aren’t meant to last forever. Eventually, one has to wake up.
Kyungsoo shakes his head and tugs his arm free of Chanyeol’s grip.
“I quit dream-sharing.”
From behind him, Chanyeol’s voice echoes through the hallway, his head.
“Kyungsoo-”
-Don’t go.
Chanyeol takes a step forward. “Kyungsoo-please. Please don’t leave.”
Kyungsoo almost doesn’t want to give him a chance. That chance had come and gone, and trying to salvage the moment now, three years later, was more than Kyungsoo could bear. Even as his hands curl into fists at his sides, Kyungsoo finds that he can’t walk away, no matter how much he wants to.
“Why?” Kyungsoo asks finally. “Why did you force me?”
For a long time, Chanyeol is silent. “You don’t understand,” he says quietly. “I needed you.”
Kyungsoo looks at him seriously in the eyes. “You know my skills are nothing down there. Taking Jongdae would have been a much better option.”
“But you’re my partner, Kyungsoo, you know me inside and out-”
“So you should have known!” Kyungsoo hisses. He doesn’t remember when his hands started shaking. “You should have known how much I hate it down there. I’m useless down there, but you forced me-”
The longer Chanyeol stares at him, smiling this blank, sad smile, the more Kyungsoo’s chest aches. “You’re not useless, Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol tells him softly. “You do so much for me-don’t you know?”
Kyungsoo’s eyebrows knit together. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Chanyeol’s voice sounds almost desperate now, pleading, and it grates on Kyungsoo’s ears as much as it makes his heart thud violent against his ribs. “You’re more than my partner, Kyungsoo. You’re my best friend. I was being selfish. I wanted you with me.”
“That doesn’t excuse anything,” Kyungsoo says bitterly. “That excuses nothing.”
“I know,” Chanyeol whispers. “And I’m sorry. You don’t know how much I’ve beat myself up over it, the fact that you got hurt because of it. I feel so fucking guilty, Kyungsoo.”
It’s way too easy, Kyungsoo thinks, to fall back in their same old routine. Chanyeol, who is bright and shining and brimming with brilliance, overpowering small and unassuming Kyungsoo. It’d be easier to just walk away and pretend that this conversation never happened.
“Why did it take you so long to come after me?” Kyungsoo asks softly.
Chanyeol grins weakly, and there’s a swooping feeling in his belly. “You can be frustratingly hard to find when you want to be, Kyungsoo. Especially if you don’t want to be found.”
He looks up as Chanyeol steps closer, and there it is again-phantom hands on the back of his neck, a whisper of an inhale.
“You don’t dream anymore, do you?”
Chanyeol’s voice, low and static-laced in his ear.
“Come dream with us again, Kyungsoo. Come back to the team.”
A very distinct feeling that he’s being watched. Or, perhaps, maybe it was him who wasn’t watching closely enough.
Kyungsoo lets go of the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“Okay,” he says, more to himself than anyone else. “Okay.”