[Fic] blue skies, broken hearts...next 12 exits; NC-17
Title: blue skies, broken hearts….next 12 exits (1/2)
Author: butterflyweb
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: changmin/yunho feat. changmin/kibum; implied yunho/fc, heechul/fc, kyuhyun/fc
Summary: Changmin maybe sort of has a thing for Yunho. Not that he's telling. Rock Band AU.
Word Count: 10,582
A/N: This is the long-overdue fill for kallistei's bid over at help_japan. Her request was for a first-time homin romance. I really hope this met the bill! I'm proud of this one--it's the longest fic I've ever written solo, I think--so I really do hope you like it. And in the interest of full disclosure, title is from the Ataris's album of the same name.
Bent over the counter, eyes bloodshot and staring into his coffee cup blankly, Changmin knows he looks like hell. He hasn’t showered, and the gel he’d had in his hair yesterday has insured that his bedhead is staying put. Ignoring the looks he’s getting from the other patrons, he lays his head down on the counter and almost groans aloud in relief. The cool Formica is a balm to his hangover, and he thinks dazedly he could just fall asleep here. That sounds fantastic, actually, just sleep right here…
Keys drop with a clatter next to his head and Changmin sits up with a jolt, blinking blearily at the new arrival. Then groans for real.
“Hyung, for fuck’s sake…”
Running a hand back through cropped, scarlet hair, Heechul smirks, sliding onto the stool beside him and raising a hand for the waitress. “Three coffees to go?”
The twenty-six year old turns to him, picking his keys up again and spinning them on his first finger.
“We have to be in Busan by six, no time to waste, Changdol.”
“Don’t call me that,” Changmin retorts automatically, robotically, making an effort to sit up a little straighter. “You said we had an hour. It’s been thirty six minutes.” He looks pointedly to the clock.
Heechul shrugs, taking the coffees and fitting two into the carrier the waitress gives him, passing over two wrinkled bills and telling her with a smile he saves for women to keep the change. Changmin scoffs under his breath and then withers under a glare from the ajumma.
“Then I lied. Come on. Kyunhyunnie offered to drive and if you pout real pretty at Yunho, you know he’ll let you have the seat with the window.”
Changmin saves himself from reply with a hasty sip to his lukewarm coffee, hoping that his ears aren’t turning red. Yeah, he knows. Yunho has a soft spot for him, Heechul claims, often and loudly and in his ear when he’s drunk. The drummer is just the type, friendly to a fault and much too nice-he had to be. Being best friends with Heechul took a certain amount of emotional fortitude and other zen-like qualities.
The smirk on the redhead’s face turns smarmy, Heechul ripping open a sugar packet and dumping it inside his own cup, fixing the lid back on.
“Come on,” he repeats, and this time Changmin gives up, sliding off the stool and picking up the rest of the pastry he’d ordered, wrapping it in a napkin for the road. Who knew how long they’d drive before they stopped. Heechul gathers the coffees, stuffing sugar and creamer packets into his pockets and following him out to where their beat up van is parked at the edge of the lot.
Changmin hates the stupid tight feeling he gets in his chest whenever he first lays eyes on Yunho in the morning.
Their drummer is leaning against the back doors of the van, smoking what’s probably his second cigarette of the morning. He won’t have another till right before the gig, then his last after. That’s the one Changmin will have with him sometimes, even though smoking turns his stomach more than anything. Yunho’s sporting dark circles and rumpled hair, but his smile is as bright and white as ever when he spots them coming.
He ducks his head to hide the wide grin that wants to break out over his own features, ignoring the way Heechul snickers at his side. Bastard. He hopes the girls he hits on tonight punch him in the groin.
“Yah, Yunja, you’ll give Changmin the window seat, right?” Heechul asks innocently as he gives Yunho his coffee before slipping away to deliver Kyuhyun’s, the singer half-dozing in the driver’s seat.
He only has the luxury of the distraction for a moment, and then Yunho is right beside him, concern written over his features. He has five o’clock shadow, Changmin notes, the corners of his mouth tugging at a smile. It’s preferable to the awkward stop-start of his pulse.
“Are you feeling okay?” A sympathetic tilt of the other man’s head. “Hangover? You were hitting the soju bombs a little hard last night…”
Changmin widens his eyes in protest. “Yah, so were you! And they were free…”
Yunho laughs at that, tapping ash to the pavement. “Yeah, believe me, I saw. Those girls were all over you--I thought we might have to leave without a bassist.”
Shuddering reflexively, Changmin covers it with a weak smile. “Regretting taking up the drums, now? Everyone knows bass is the sexiest.”
Another laugh, Yunho slinging an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in tight for a moment before letting go. “Get in the van, Casanova. You can have the window, I don’t mind.”
Warm, Changmin nods and goes as told, pulling open the side door and climbing inside, shooting back a glare to Heechul’s leer.
“Can we go already?”
*
This thing he has for Yunho…
It isn’t so much a ‘thing’ as it is…an affection. Respect, really. He admires the other man, both because of his talent and his attitude, and of course, they’re friends. Good friends-they spend a good twenty four hours together in confined spaces most of the time, so of course they’re close. And so maybe it isn’t the same kind of friendship he has with Kyuhyun, maybe there’s a huge number of things he doesn’t know about Yunho, maybe he feels more awkward around him than he ever has with Kyuhyunnie, but…all friendships are different.
And so okay, Yunho is handsome. That’s not having a thing, that’s…that’s having eyes. The older man has that sharp jaw and small face and movie star smile that stop most people in their tracks. Changmin would be an idiot if he didn’t admit that, and if there’s one thing Changmin isn’t, it’s an idiot.
So that’s it, really. Friendship, respect, admiration. So what if he gets nervous when he sees him or stains his fingers with cigarettes he doesn’t like to smoke so they can have some one on one time. If he crams his long legs in the back seats because Yunho too easily gives up shotgun, and edges Kyuhyun and Heechul out of the way when Yunho’s driving so he can read the map and listen to Yunho sing along to the radio. So what.
It isn’t a thing.
*
He falls asleep against the window, leather jacket draped over himself and warm despite the open driver’s side window. Wakes again when they hit a pothole, head thwacking against the glass and startling him into alertness. Kyuhyun winces in sympathy from where he’s sitting beside him, going over their set list for the hundredth time, and Changmin blinks to realize they’d stopped and switched drivers somewhere along the way.
“Where are we?” he mumbles, yawning and scrubbing at his face.
“’bout an hour outside Busan,” comes the reply from the younger man, Kyuhyun scratching at his jaw and nodding between the front two seats. “We picked up dinner-hyung said not to wake you, so we just got you a hamburger.”
He knows perfectly well which hyung Kyuhyun means.
The jacket sliding down, Changmin reaches for the bag, ignoring the fact that it’s cold and smiling slightly when he sees the ‘no pickles’ tag stuck to the outside of the sandwich. Unwrapping it, he takes a big bite, frowning when he sees Kyuhyun staring at him.
“Mmwaht?” he asks, mouthful.
His best friend smirks, shaking his head and going back to worrying the bracer around his wrist.
“Nothing. Just thinking.” A thoughtful tilt of the head. “Heechul hyung wasn’t kidding.”
He stares at him in confusion for a minute before it clicks, and then he’s darting a gaze up front to where Yunho is fiddling with the radio, oblivious, and Heechul is asleep, only kept upright by the force of his seatbelt.
“Heechul hyung doesn’t know shit,” Changmin retorts under his breath, chucking a fry at his head. “And neither do you. God.”
Kyunhyun detangles the French fry from his hair and launches it back Changmin’s way, grinning when it nails him right in the forehead.
“Whatever you say, hyung. “
*
Depending on how many albums they sell, and whether or not they can get Kyuhyun to call his girlfriend back in Seoul and get her to wire him money, they can usually manage to scrape together enough cash to stay in a motel once a week. The rest of the time, nights are divided between saunas, the living room floor of Heechul’s one-night stands, and the van.
They’ve been stuck in the van for eight straight nights. Changmin thinks if his back were any more screwed up at this point, he’d be the crooked man who lived down the crooked lane. And so while any other time he’d be offering sympathetic glances Kyuhyun’s way while Heechul nagged at him, this time he’s more than signed up to bully their youngest.
“I’m not calling her again,” Kyuhyun is protesting hotly, glaring at them where they sit across from him, squeezed three abreast into one side of the booth. He clutches his coffee mug in poor defense. “I’m not.”
Heechul’s eyes narrow and even Yunho looks like he’s going to upend the coffee in Kyuhyun’s lap if he doesn’t give-in.
“Guys, she’s already sent me a hundred bucks already, if I keep asking, I’m going to be the deadbeat loser boyfriend. Not what I was going for when I joined a band, okay?” Kyuhyun’s shoulders are hunched and his features sullen, and Changmin almost takes pity on him until he shifts in his seat and his back pops loud enough for everyone at the table to hear.
He plunks five hundred won down in front of his best friend, nodding to the payphone in the corner of the small restaurant.
“Do it, or you’ll be a dead loser boyfriend. Got it?”
There’s a silence, Kyuhyun muttering something that sounds suspiciously like ‘fucking assholes’, and then he’s pushing his coffee cup to the side, and sliding out of the booth, stalking towards the back of the restaurant. Heechul cackles gleefully, sliding out of the booth himself and following.
“He doesn’t trust him not to lie and say she said no,” Yunho notes with a soft snort, the proximity of his voice reminding Changmin how close he’s sitting to him, their thighs and shoulders pressed up against one another in an attempt to accommodate the three of them. He scoots away to give
Yunho room, ears hot with embarassment.
The drummer doesn’t seem to notice, tapping his fingers on the table as he reaches to steal a fry from Heechul’s abandoned plate.
Changmin makes a face, coughing to hide the way he’s still flushing, looking after their bandmates. “Either way, I’m not sharing with him. He’s going to be sending me wounded looks all night and bitching that I didn’t take his side.” Changmin scoffs. “I’m the tallest person one here, I think my vote towards sleeping arrangements should count the most.”
Yunho rolls his eyes at him with a grin. “By two whole centimeters. Whatever.” He snatches another fry. “You wanna share with me then? You know Kyu won’t complain to Heechul, he’d end up losing his tongue.”
Laughing to try to hide just how hard that offer made it to swallow, Changmin forces a casual shrug. Annoyed at himself for how he’s acting, for how he’s been acting lately. Namely like a fourteen year old girl with a celebrity crush. It’s embarassing.
“Yeah, sure.” Changmin puts a smile on, fingers working on the leather cuff around his wrist, the nervous gesture under the table and out of sight.
“Sounds good.”
*
Yeah, sure he mocks himself silently, hours later, when they’re checked into their tiny closet of a room to find one painfully narrow double bed sitting there innocently. No problem, hyung, none at all. It’s a fucking fantastic idea, really.
Dropping his bag on the floor, he watches as Yunho crouches in the desk chair, flipping through the channels on the ancient television and biting at a thumbnail. He stops when he hits the news, obviously absorbed, and thankfully, seemingly oblivious to Changmin’s internal crisis five feet away.
“I’m just going to...” he trails off, wondering why he feels he needs to announce that he’s going to brush his teeth, wincing and squatting to dig through his bag for his toothbrush and his contact case, then going to lock the bathroom door behind him.
He just...it shouldn’t be weird. There’s no reason for it to be weird, Yunho is his friend first, before anything else, and he wouldn’t have hesitated if it had been Kyuhyunnie, or even Heechul hyung. Acting stupid like this is what turns a little thing into a big thing, and that isn’t what he wants. It isn’t.
Splashing his face with cold water, Changmin takes a leak, then brushes his teeth and removes his contacts, slipping his glasses on before going back out to the room. He bites down hard on his tongue for the way his breath catches when he sees Yunho sitting in his boxers and a white tee on the bed. His headphones cover his ears as he flicks through his mp3 player, humming to something Changmin can’t hear.
Forcing himself to cross the distance of the room, Changmin sits down on the edge, hesitating before reaching over and jostling Yunho’s shoulder.
Ready to ask him if he wants Changmin to take the floor, since there isn’t a lot of space, and he is the hyung after all.
The words don’t make it out, Yunho flashing a smile at him, and taking out one of his headphones to hand to Changmin.
“Here, listen to this, tell me what you think. It’s just three guys, but the lead singer is fantastic, listen--”
Changmin puts the bud in his ear, the familiar sounds of a guitar, bass and drums pound through the speakers, and Yunho’s right, the guy is good.
Really good, and not for the first time, Changmin finds himself wondering if they’re ever going to get there. If this is really just some thing they’re doing when they should be in college, if it’s just something they’ll look back on in their forties as a bit of fun had with friends before life got serious.
Before they had fully put away childish things.
“Good, right?” Yunho beams at him, the expression warm and bright, despite his greasy bangs and the dark shadow of his facial hair. “It’d be great if we could open for them, sometime, we should send one of the CDs in to their label, right? It’d get us great exposure, I mean, I think we’re more than ready for that. Don’t you?”
The words, the eagerness in the other man’s voice...it whitewashes Changmin’s doubts in a heartbeat, and he finds himself smiling genuinely back at the older man.
“Fucking right we are.”
Yunho grins, leaning forward over the iPod again, switching the track. “Okay, now this one, I fucking love this song...”
They end up falling asleep that way, a shared headphone in each of their ears, Yunho with one arm hanging off the bed, Changmin with his face half-buried in a pillow. And when Changmin wakes the next morning, wiping saliva from the corner of his mouth and listening to Yunho snoring softly beside him, it strikes him just how natural this feels.
*
The best thing about playing in college towns, Changmin decides, balancing unsteadily on a stool as he’s handed another shot, besides getting free drinks, is that shows were always packed. There’d been nearly two hundred people crammed into the bar’s basement, all half-drunk and shouting along with songs they’d never heard.
It was a total rush, being in front of a crowd like that-even if the ‘stage’ was a rickety thing made of plywood and stacked a foot off the ground, even if Kyuhyun’s mic had gone out twice during their three song set. It didn’t matter. Playing for a crowd, making two hundred bucks, getting free shots…it was about as close to perfect as life could get right about now.
Knocking back the shot of tequila, he pushes himself off the stool, sway unsteadily before looking around for his bandmates, the bar still full even as it was going on three am.
Heechul almost gives him a heart attack when he appears out of nowhere, clapping him forcefully on the back.
“See that girl over there?” he all but shouts, blatantly pointing to a tomboy-ish chick in combat boots and a loose tie. Changmin’s pretty sure she’d been the drummer for the first group that had gone up, the one with the purple-haired lead singer.
“What about her?” he asks, disdain a hard thing to get across when he has to yell to be heard over the music.
Heechul grins lecherously at him. “I’m gonna fuck her.”
Changmin groans, because how did he not see that coming, trying to shrug his hyung off. He really didn’t need to know any more about Heechul’s sex life than he already did. He had enough mental pictures to scar him through the next four life cycles. “For fuck’s sake, is she even legal?”
The older man has the audacity to look offended. “Yah, I’m not a cradle robber. And from what I’ve seen, she’s on her second soju bomb, so I’m thinking she’s good to go.”
Another wince, Changmin pulling away from him and stumbling slightly to the side. “Not listening to you anymore. Don’t need the nightmares.”
Heechul rolls his eyes, flicking at him with his fingers. “Fine, fine. Buzzkill. You’re a terrible wingman anyway.”
Changmin attempts an eyeroll of his own, even as it only serves to make him dizzier, swaying a little on his feet. “Whatever. Listen, I’m heading back to the van, so find another love shack, okay?”
Rolling his eyes, the redhead passes him the spare keys and Changmin heads out, walking unsteadily through the crowd to the firedoors in the back of the club. He dimly remembers they’d parked behind the place. Fuck, he shouldn’t have had that last shot. He needs to lay down and not move again for like…a week and a half.
The chill of the night air sobers him up a little, clear and crisp as he inhales slowly. Drunkenly, Changmin wonders if it’s cold enough to snow, tilting his head up to look at the pitch dark sky, the stars washed out by the lights in the parking lot. The view doesn’t do much for his balance, stumbling over his own feet, and he drags his attention back down to Earth.
He’s just about to reach down in his pocket for the car keys Heechul’d had made for all of them when he hears noises coming from the van.
Confused, Changmin twists to look back to the club, but there’s no way Heechul could’ve gotten that girl and got out here before him, is there?
Frowning, he moves closer to the van, listening carefully.
There comes a girlish giggle and a soft, breathy moan, and then-a voice that’s unmistakably Yunho’s.
The keys slip out of Changmin’s numb fingers to hit the pavement.
Backing away from the vehicle, he tries to swallow, his throat inexplicably tight and vision blurry, stumbling towards the dumpsters behind the building. Yunho was in there with a girl. Yunho was in there, in their van, fucking around with some slut he didn’t even know. Just thinking it feels like a punch to the gut and Changmin tries desperately to regain his suddenly lost composure.
He doesn’t care. He doesn’t, Yunho can do whatever the fuck he wants, it’s not his problem. He can impregnate a thousand drunk hobags and get herpes and father five hundred wriggling, screaming babies. Changmin couldn’t give less of a shit. It’s just the lack of respect for community property, that’s all, the lack of respect for others, that’s just-
Clutching the side of the dumpster, Changmin bends over and pukes right beside it.
Once it turns into dry heaves, stomach giving out, he drags himself back. Walks along the edge of the wall until he can’t see for the tears, sliding down against the brick to sit heavily on the pavement. Kyuhyun finds him there, hours later, minutes later, his arms wrapped loosely around his legs and his forehead against his knees. He’s not even sure if he’s crying anymore, not after he could barely admit it to himself in the first place.
“Hyung?”
He feels, rather than sees the singer crouch beside him, silence for a moment before a hand lands on his shoulder and forces Changmin’s head to come up. Even as he wipes hastily at his cheeks, he sees Kyuhyun’s eyes widen.
“I’m fine,” he gets out pre-emptively, but the roughness in his voice and the redness of his eyes calls him a liar.
Kyuhyun shifts until he’s kneeling, smelling like the bar and the leather of his jacket, his normally smiling face creased with concern. “No, you’re not.
Don’t even try that. What’s going on?”
Biting hard into his lower lip, Changmin shakes his head, cradling it in his hands because fuck, he’s still drunk and emotional and he’s going to fall apart, he knows he is, if he talks about it.
“Is it…” Kyunhyun’s voice is quiet, careful. “Hyung, is it…Yunho?”
The simple words are enough to open the floodgates.
“I don’t like him,” Changmin chokes out, shutting his eyes tight against the tears that threaten once again. “I don’t, I shouldn’t even care…but then…but then he goes and fucks some slut in our van and all I can think about it how I want to tear her hair out and it’s so fucking stupid. I just…I just…”
He hears a soft sigh beside him, feels Kyuhyun shift until they’re sitting shoulder to shoulder, an arm circling his shoulders and tugging him in close.
“You just have a thing for him,” Kyuhyun murmurs, the words so simple and matter of fact it makes Changmin’s stomach twist.
“Yeah,” he chokes out, wiping at his face with the edge of his jacket sleeve, letting his head thump back against the brick.
“I guess I do.”
Kyuhyun squeezes him, tight and reassuring, and Changmin lets himself sink into his best friend’s side, taking the comfort offered and resting his head on a bony shoulder. He swallows around the lump in his throat.
“You’re not freaked out?”
The other man’s scoff stirs his hair. “I know you like men, Changmin. And shit, as long as it’s not Heechul…”
Changmin laughs wetly, pressing his hands over his face as it threatens to turn into another sob, and Kyuhyun just holds him tighter.
*
He spends the night on the couch of some people Kyuhyun had met after the show, their apartment only a block from the club and his best friend feeling too protective to let him out of his sight. As much as he hates feeling like a pity case, Changmin’s grateful-there’s no way he could’ve slept in the van after that, when there was every chance Yunho had kept the girl there for round two in the morning.
There’s thankfully no sight of the older man when they return the next morning, the back doors of the van open and Heechul sitting on the bumper, smoking lazily as he sifts through their box of merchandise. Despite his misery, Changmin is curious to see how they made out last night, and climbs up beside him. Kyuhyun darts a gaze at him, digging through the front seat compartments for his shades, but Changmin ignores him. He doesn’t need a babysitter. He just needs to pretend like everything’s normal. Maybe then this sick feeling will just disappear with the rest of his hangover.
“How’d we make out?”
“Enough to get us gas to the next venue and then some,” Heechul tells him, thumbing through a rumpled bundle of cash before wrapping a rubber band back around it and sticking it in his guitar case. “Sold twenty CDs.”
His voice is nonchalant but when he looks up, he’s grinning, and Changmin matches the expression with more ease than he would’ve thought.
“Wait, really?” Kyuhyun calls from where he’s draped over the front seat, eyes wide. “We seriously made a hundred thousand won last night?”
Heechul pats his guitar case. “You bet your sweet ass we did. Plus the seventy five thousand we got from the cover charge.” His voice turns wistful.
“I’ve been eying this pair of plaid pants…”
Changmin kicks him lightly. “The money still goes four ways, hyung. We should save it, maybe spring for some better take-out tonight. That drive-thru stuff is screwing with Yunho’s-“ He cuts himself off.
The sound of the other man’s name is too loud to his ears, too natural in his mouth. Changmin bites down on his tongue so hard he’s surprised he doesn’t taste blood.
If Heechul caught the reaction, he doesn’t let on, peering around the edge of the open door. “Speaking of that bastard, either of you see him? Said he was going out for coffees…” A snort. “Real chipper, too. I think he got laid last night.”
Changmin pastes a smile on his face even though he feels like he’s been kicked in the chest.
“N-no. Kyunhyun-ah and I just got back, hyung.”
Heechul looks at him for a second, blinking slightly. “Oh. Right. Whatever, be a good boy and help me get all this shit organized and loaded up. We need to take off as soon as he gets back.”
“I’m not a fucking roadie,” Changmin bites out, suddenly agitated, standing and brushing off the back of his pants. “I’m not even the youngest. Get Kyuhyun to help you.”
Before Heechul can retort, Changmin grabs his coat and takes off, already digging in his pockets for his cigarettes. Esse’s. Yunho’s brand.
“Son of a bitch-“ he chokes out at the edge of the parking lot, sinking down in resignation to sit on a parking stop, forcing himself to take a deep breath. It wasn’t Yunho’s brand, it was just a fucking brand, and he needed to get a grip before they started out and he found himself stuck in a confined space with the guy.
Grinding his teeth, Changmin pulls out a cigarette and flicks the lighter, the flame catching the tip and flaring. He inhales deeply, nearly too deep, coughing slightly as he exhales.
“Little early in the day for you, isn’t it, Min-ah?”
Startled, Changmin swears, nearly dropping the cigarette as he lurches to his feet. Anything else dies in his throat as he sees Yunho’s curious expression and slight smile, a paper bag balanced on top a tray of coffees.
“Changmin?” He can almost hear the concern flare when he doesn’t meet Yunho’s eyes or respond to the tease, and swearing in his head,
Changmin tries to get a hold of himself. Just say something, you moron.
“Nothing. I’m fine. Just…just hungover, thought it might help.” He flicks it to the ground, stepping on the flaming butt, ignoring the waste. “Probably shouldn’t, Kyuhyun will bitch. He hates the smell,” he explains needlessly, as if Yunho hasn’t know Kyuhyunnie for years now.
Yunho laughs, moving closer to fall into step with him as they turn back towards the van and Changmin resists the urge to walk faster. “I think that’s the least of the smells we should be getting worried about. We’re all past due for a shower. Should probably stop at a sauna or something tonight…”
Again, Changmin is silent, staring at the ground, even as he can feel Yunho’s eyes boring into the side of his head.
There’s a slight cough, then, “I was going to take the first driving shift, you want to call shotgun?”
Something surges and twists in his chest, and Changmin can’t do this right now, fuck. “No. I mean. No, let Kyuhyun take it, it’s fine.”
He starts walking faster then, shrugging his leather jacket around his shoulders and missing the look on Yunho’s face as he leaves him behind.
continue...
Author: butterflyweb
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: changmin/yunho feat. changmin/kibum; implied yunho/fc, heechul/fc, kyuhyun/fc
Summary: Changmin maybe sort of has a thing for Yunho. Not that he's telling. Rock Band AU.
Word Count: 10,582
A/N: This is the long-overdue fill for kallistei's bid over at help_japan. Her request was for a first-time homin romance. I really hope this met the bill! I'm proud of this one--it's the longest fic I've ever written solo, I think--so I really do hope you like it. And in the interest of full disclosure, title is from the Ataris's album of the same name.
Bent over the counter, eyes bloodshot and staring into his coffee cup blankly, Changmin knows he looks like hell. He hasn’t showered, and the gel he’d had in his hair yesterday has insured that his bedhead is staying put. Ignoring the looks he’s getting from the other patrons, he lays his head down on the counter and almost groans aloud in relief. The cool Formica is a balm to his hangover, and he thinks dazedly he could just fall asleep here. That sounds fantastic, actually, just sleep right here…
Keys drop with a clatter next to his head and Changmin sits up with a jolt, blinking blearily at the new arrival. Then groans for real.
“Hyung, for fuck’s sake…”
Running a hand back through cropped, scarlet hair, Heechul smirks, sliding onto the stool beside him and raising a hand for the waitress. “Three coffees to go?”
The twenty-six year old turns to him, picking his keys up again and spinning them on his first finger.
“We have to be in Busan by six, no time to waste, Changdol.”
“Don’t call me that,” Changmin retorts automatically, robotically, making an effort to sit up a little straighter. “You said we had an hour. It’s been thirty six minutes.” He looks pointedly to the clock.
Heechul shrugs, taking the coffees and fitting two into the carrier the waitress gives him, passing over two wrinkled bills and telling her with a smile he saves for women to keep the change. Changmin scoffs under his breath and then withers under a glare from the ajumma.
“Then I lied. Come on. Kyunhyunnie offered to drive and if you pout real pretty at Yunho, you know he’ll let you have the seat with the window.”
Changmin saves himself from reply with a hasty sip to his lukewarm coffee, hoping that his ears aren’t turning red. Yeah, he knows. Yunho has a soft spot for him, Heechul claims, often and loudly and in his ear when he’s drunk. The drummer is just the type, friendly to a fault and much too nice-he had to be. Being best friends with Heechul took a certain amount of emotional fortitude and other zen-like qualities.
The smirk on the redhead’s face turns smarmy, Heechul ripping open a sugar packet and dumping it inside his own cup, fixing the lid back on.
“Come on,” he repeats, and this time Changmin gives up, sliding off the stool and picking up the rest of the pastry he’d ordered, wrapping it in a napkin for the road. Who knew how long they’d drive before they stopped. Heechul gathers the coffees, stuffing sugar and creamer packets into his pockets and following him out to where their beat up van is parked at the edge of the lot.
Changmin hates the stupid tight feeling he gets in his chest whenever he first lays eyes on Yunho in the morning.
Their drummer is leaning against the back doors of the van, smoking what’s probably his second cigarette of the morning. He won’t have another till right before the gig, then his last after. That’s the one Changmin will have with him sometimes, even though smoking turns his stomach more than anything. Yunho’s sporting dark circles and rumpled hair, but his smile is as bright and white as ever when he spots them coming.
He ducks his head to hide the wide grin that wants to break out over his own features, ignoring the way Heechul snickers at his side. Bastard. He hopes the girls he hits on tonight punch him in the groin.
“Yah, Yunja, you’ll give Changmin the window seat, right?” Heechul asks innocently as he gives Yunho his coffee before slipping away to deliver Kyuhyun’s, the singer half-dozing in the driver’s seat.
He only has the luxury of the distraction for a moment, and then Yunho is right beside him, concern written over his features. He has five o’clock shadow, Changmin notes, the corners of his mouth tugging at a smile. It’s preferable to the awkward stop-start of his pulse.
“Are you feeling okay?” A sympathetic tilt of the other man’s head. “Hangover? You were hitting the soju bombs a little hard last night…”
Changmin widens his eyes in protest. “Yah, so were you! And they were free…”
Yunho laughs at that, tapping ash to the pavement. “Yeah, believe me, I saw. Those girls were all over you--I thought we might have to leave without a bassist.”
Shuddering reflexively, Changmin covers it with a weak smile. “Regretting taking up the drums, now? Everyone knows bass is the sexiest.”
Another laugh, Yunho slinging an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in tight for a moment before letting go. “Get in the van, Casanova. You can have the window, I don’t mind.”
Warm, Changmin nods and goes as told, pulling open the side door and climbing inside, shooting back a glare to Heechul’s leer.
“Can we go already?”
*
This thing he has for Yunho…
It isn’t so much a ‘thing’ as it is…an affection. Respect, really. He admires the other man, both because of his talent and his attitude, and of course, they’re friends. Good friends-they spend a good twenty four hours together in confined spaces most of the time, so of course they’re close. And so maybe it isn’t the same kind of friendship he has with Kyuhyun, maybe there’s a huge number of things he doesn’t know about Yunho, maybe he feels more awkward around him than he ever has with Kyuhyunnie, but…all friendships are different.
And so okay, Yunho is handsome. That’s not having a thing, that’s…that’s having eyes. The older man has that sharp jaw and small face and movie star smile that stop most people in their tracks. Changmin would be an idiot if he didn’t admit that, and if there’s one thing Changmin isn’t, it’s an idiot.
So that’s it, really. Friendship, respect, admiration. So what if he gets nervous when he sees him or stains his fingers with cigarettes he doesn’t like to smoke so they can have some one on one time. If he crams his long legs in the back seats because Yunho too easily gives up shotgun, and edges Kyuhyun and Heechul out of the way when Yunho’s driving so he can read the map and listen to Yunho sing along to the radio. So what.
It isn’t a thing.
*
He falls asleep against the window, leather jacket draped over himself and warm despite the open driver’s side window. Wakes again when they hit a pothole, head thwacking against the glass and startling him into alertness. Kyuhyun winces in sympathy from where he’s sitting beside him, going over their set list for the hundredth time, and Changmin blinks to realize they’d stopped and switched drivers somewhere along the way.
“Where are we?” he mumbles, yawning and scrubbing at his face.
“’bout an hour outside Busan,” comes the reply from the younger man, Kyuhyun scratching at his jaw and nodding between the front two seats. “We picked up dinner-hyung said not to wake you, so we just got you a hamburger.”
He knows perfectly well which hyung Kyuhyun means.
The jacket sliding down, Changmin reaches for the bag, ignoring the fact that it’s cold and smiling slightly when he sees the ‘no pickles’ tag stuck to the outside of the sandwich. Unwrapping it, he takes a big bite, frowning when he sees Kyuhyun staring at him.
“Mmwaht?” he asks, mouthful.
His best friend smirks, shaking his head and going back to worrying the bracer around his wrist.
“Nothing. Just thinking.” A thoughtful tilt of the head. “Heechul hyung wasn’t kidding.”
He stares at him in confusion for a minute before it clicks, and then he’s darting a gaze up front to where Yunho is fiddling with the radio, oblivious, and Heechul is asleep, only kept upright by the force of his seatbelt.
“Heechul hyung doesn’t know shit,” Changmin retorts under his breath, chucking a fry at his head. “And neither do you. God.”
Kyunhyun detangles the French fry from his hair and launches it back Changmin’s way, grinning when it nails him right in the forehead.
“Whatever you say, hyung. “
*
Depending on how many albums they sell, and whether or not they can get Kyuhyun to call his girlfriend back in Seoul and get her to wire him money, they can usually manage to scrape together enough cash to stay in a motel once a week. The rest of the time, nights are divided between saunas, the living room floor of Heechul’s one-night stands, and the van.
They’ve been stuck in the van for eight straight nights. Changmin thinks if his back were any more screwed up at this point, he’d be the crooked man who lived down the crooked lane. And so while any other time he’d be offering sympathetic glances Kyuhyun’s way while Heechul nagged at him, this time he’s more than signed up to bully their youngest.
“I’m not calling her again,” Kyuhyun is protesting hotly, glaring at them where they sit across from him, squeezed three abreast into one side of the booth. He clutches his coffee mug in poor defense. “I’m not.”
Heechul’s eyes narrow and even Yunho looks like he’s going to upend the coffee in Kyuhyun’s lap if he doesn’t give-in.
“Guys, she’s already sent me a hundred bucks already, if I keep asking, I’m going to be the deadbeat loser boyfriend. Not what I was going for when I joined a band, okay?” Kyuhyun’s shoulders are hunched and his features sullen, and Changmin almost takes pity on him until he shifts in his seat and his back pops loud enough for everyone at the table to hear.
He plunks five hundred won down in front of his best friend, nodding to the payphone in the corner of the small restaurant.
“Do it, or you’ll be a dead loser boyfriend. Got it?”
There’s a silence, Kyuhyun muttering something that sounds suspiciously like ‘fucking assholes’, and then he’s pushing his coffee cup to the side, and sliding out of the booth, stalking towards the back of the restaurant. Heechul cackles gleefully, sliding out of the booth himself and following.
“He doesn’t trust him not to lie and say she said no,” Yunho notes with a soft snort, the proximity of his voice reminding Changmin how close he’s sitting to him, their thighs and shoulders pressed up against one another in an attempt to accommodate the three of them. He scoots away to give
Yunho room, ears hot with embarassment.
The drummer doesn’t seem to notice, tapping his fingers on the table as he reaches to steal a fry from Heechul’s abandoned plate.
Changmin makes a face, coughing to hide the way he’s still flushing, looking after their bandmates. “Either way, I’m not sharing with him. He’s going to be sending me wounded looks all night and bitching that I didn’t take his side.” Changmin scoffs. “I’m the tallest person one here, I think my vote towards sleeping arrangements should count the most.”
Yunho rolls his eyes at him with a grin. “By two whole centimeters. Whatever.” He snatches another fry. “You wanna share with me then? You know Kyu won’t complain to Heechul, he’d end up losing his tongue.”
Laughing to try to hide just how hard that offer made it to swallow, Changmin forces a casual shrug. Annoyed at himself for how he’s acting, for how he’s been acting lately. Namely like a fourteen year old girl with a celebrity crush. It’s embarassing.
“Yeah, sure.” Changmin puts a smile on, fingers working on the leather cuff around his wrist, the nervous gesture under the table and out of sight.
“Sounds good.”
*
Yeah, sure he mocks himself silently, hours later, when they’re checked into their tiny closet of a room to find one painfully narrow double bed sitting there innocently. No problem, hyung, none at all. It’s a fucking fantastic idea, really.
Dropping his bag on the floor, he watches as Yunho crouches in the desk chair, flipping through the channels on the ancient television and biting at a thumbnail. He stops when he hits the news, obviously absorbed, and thankfully, seemingly oblivious to Changmin’s internal crisis five feet away.
“I’m just going to...” he trails off, wondering why he feels he needs to announce that he’s going to brush his teeth, wincing and squatting to dig through his bag for his toothbrush and his contact case, then going to lock the bathroom door behind him.
He just...it shouldn’t be weird. There’s no reason for it to be weird, Yunho is his friend first, before anything else, and he wouldn’t have hesitated if it had been Kyuhyunnie, or even Heechul hyung. Acting stupid like this is what turns a little thing into a big thing, and that isn’t what he wants. It isn’t.
Splashing his face with cold water, Changmin takes a leak, then brushes his teeth and removes his contacts, slipping his glasses on before going back out to the room. He bites down hard on his tongue for the way his breath catches when he sees Yunho sitting in his boxers and a white tee on the bed. His headphones cover his ears as he flicks through his mp3 player, humming to something Changmin can’t hear.
Forcing himself to cross the distance of the room, Changmin sits down on the edge, hesitating before reaching over and jostling Yunho’s shoulder.
Ready to ask him if he wants Changmin to take the floor, since there isn’t a lot of space, and he is the hyung after all.
The words don’t make it out, Yunho flashing a smile at him, and taking out one of his headphones to hand to Changmin.
“Here, listen to this, tell me what you think. It’s just three guys, but the lead singer is fantastic, listen--”
Changmin puts the bud in his ear, the familiar sounds of a guitar, bass and drums pound through the speakers, and Yunho’s right, the guy is good.
Really good, and not for the first time, Changmin finds himself wondering if they’re ever going to get there. If this is really just some thing they’re doing when they should be in college, if it’s just something they’ll look back on in their forties as a bit of fun had with friends before life got serious.
Before they had fully put away childish things.
“Good, right?” Yunho beams at him, the expression warm and bright, despite his greasy bangs and the dark shadow of his facial hair. “It’d be great if we could open for them, sometime, we should send one of the CDs in to their label, right? It’d get us great exposure, I mean, I think we’re more than ready for that. Don’t you?”
The words, the eagerness in the other man’s voice...it whitewashes Changmin’s doubts in a heartbeat, and he finds himself smiling genuinely back at the older man.
“Fucking right we are.”
Yunho grins, leaning forward over the iPod again, switching the track. “Okay, now this one, I fucking love this song...”
They end up falling asleep that way, a shared headphone in each of their ears, Yunho with one arm hanging off the bed, Changmin with his face half-buried in a pillow. And when Changmin wakes the next morning, wiping saliva from the corner of his mouth and listening to Yunho snoring softly beside him, it strikes him just how natural this feels.
*
The best thing about playing in college towns, Changmin decides, balancing unsteadily on a stool as he’s handed another shot, besides getting free drinks, is that shows were always packed. There’d been nearly two hundred people crammed into the bar’s basement, all half-drunk and shouting along with songs they’d never heard.
It was a total rush, being in front of a crowd like that-even if the ‘stage’ was a rickety thing made of plywood and stacked a foot off the ground, even if Kyuhyun’s mic had gone out twice during their three song set. It didn’t matter. Playing for a crowd, making two hundred bucks, getting free shots…it was about as close to perfect as life could get right about now.
Knocking back the shot of tequila, he pushes himself off the stool, sway unsteadily before looking around for his bandmates, the bar still full even as it was going on three am.
Heechul almost gives him a heart attack when he appears out of nowhere, clapping him forcefully on the back.
“See that girl over there?” he all but shouts, blatantly pointing to a tomboy-ish chick in combat boots and a loose tie. Changmin’s pretty sure she’d been the drummer for the first group that had gone up, the one with the purple-haired lead singer.
“What about her?” he asks, disdain a hard thing to get across when he has to yell to be heard over the music.
Heechul grins lecherously at him. “I’m gonna fuck her.”
Changmin groans, because how did he not see that coming, trying to shrug his hyung off. He really didn’t need to know any more about Heechul’s sex life than he already did. He had enough mental pictures to scar him through the next four life cycles. “For fuck’s sake, is she even legal?”
The older man has the audacity to look offended. “Yah, I’m not a cradle robber. And from what I’ve seen, she’s on her second soju bomb, so I’m thinking she’s good to go.”
Another wince, Changmin pulling away from him and stumbling slightly to the side. “Not listening to you anymore. Don’t need the nightmares.”
Heechul rolls his eyes, flicking at him with his fingers. “Fine, fine. Buzzkill. You’re a terrible wingman anyway.”
Changmin attempts an eyeroll of his own, even as it only serves to make him dizzier, swaying a little on his feet. “Whatever. Listen, I’m heading back to the van, so find another love shack, okay?”
Rolling his eyes, the redhead passes him the spare keys and Changmin heads out, walking unsteadily through the crowd to the firedoors in the back of the club. He dimly remembers they’d parked behind the place. Fuck, he shouldn’t have had that last shot. He needs to lay down and not move again for like…a week and a half.
The chill of the night air sobers him up a little, clear and crisp as he inhales slowly. Drunkenly, Changmin wonders if it’s cold enough to snow, tilting his head up to look at the pitch dark sky, the stars washed out by the lights in the parking lot. The view doesn’t do much for his balance, stumbling over his own feet, and he drags his attention back down to Earth.
He’s just about to reach down in his pocket for the car keys Heechul’d had made for all of them when he hears noises coming from the van.
Confused, Changmin twists to look back to the club, but there’s no way Heechul could’ve gotten that girl and got out here before him, is there?
Frowning, he moves closer to the van, listening carefully.
There comes a girlish giggle and a soft, breathy moan, and then-a voice that’s unmistakably Yunho’s.
The keys slip out of Changmin’s numb fingers to hit the pavement.
Backing away from the vehicle, he tries to swallow, his throat inexplicably tight and vision blurry, stumbling towards the dumpsters behind the building. Yunho was in there with a girl. Yunho was in there, in their van, fucking around with some slut he didn’t even know. Just thinking it feels like a punch to the gut and Changmin tries desperately to regain his suddenly lost composure.
He doesn’t care. He doesn’t, Yunho can do whatever the fuck he wants, it’s not his problem. He can impregnate a thousand drunk hobags and get herpes and father five hundred wriggling, screaming babies. Changmin couldn’t give less of a shit. It’s just the lack of respect for community property, that’s all, the lack of respect for others, that’s just-
Clutching the side of the dumpster, Changmin bends over and pukes right beside it.
Once it turns into dry heaves, stomach giving out, he drags himself back. Walks along the edge of the wall until he can’t see for the tears, sliding down against the brick to sit heavily on the pavement. Kyuhyun finds him there, hours later, minutes later, his arms wrapped loosely around his legs and his forehead against his knees. He’s not even sure if he’s crying anymore, not after he could barely admit it to himself in the first place.
“Hyung?”
He feels, rather than sees the singer crouch beside him, silence for a moment before a hand lands on his shoulder and forces Changmin’s head to come up. Even as he wipes hastily at his cheeks, he sees Kyuhyun’s eyes widen.
“I’m fine,” he gets out pre-emptively, but the roughness in his voice and the redness of his eyes calls him a liar.
Kyuhyun shifts until he’s kneeling, smelling like the bar and the leather of his jacket, his normally smiling face creased with concern. “No, you’re not.
Don’t even try that. What’s going on?”
Biting hard into his lower lip, Changmin shakes his head, cradling it in his hands because fuck, he’s still drunk and emotional and he’s going to fall apart, he knows he is, if he talks about it.
“Is it…” Kyunhyun’s voice is quiet, careful. “Hyung, is it…Yunho?”
The simple words are enough to open the floodgates.
“I don’t like him,” Changmin chokes out, shutting his eyes tight against the tears that threaten once again. “I don’t, I shouldn’t even care…but then…but then he goes and fucks some slut in our van and all I can think about it how I want to tear her hair out and it’s so fucking stupid. I just…I just…”
He hears a soft sigh beside him, feels Kyuhyun shift until they’re sitting shoulder to shoulder, an arm circling his shoulders and tugging him in close.
“You just have a thing for him,” Kyuhyun murmurs, the words so simple and matter of fact it makes Changmin’s stomach twist.
“Yeah,” he chokes out, wiping at his face with the edge of his jacket sleeve, letting his head thump back against the brick.
“I guess I do.”
Kyuhyun squeezes him, tight and reassuring, and Changmin lets himself sink into his best friend’s side, taking the comfort offered and resting his head on a bony shoulder. He swallows around the lump in his throat.
“You’re not freaked out?”
The other man’s scoff stirs his hair. “I know you like men, Changmin. And shit, as long as it’s not Heechul…”
Changmin laughs wetly, pressing his hands over his face as it threatens to turn into another sob, and Kyuhyun just holds him tighter.
*
He spends the night on the couch of some people Kyuhyun had met after the show, their apartment only a block from the club and his best friend feeling too protective to let him out of his sight. As much as he hates feeling like a pity case, Changmin’s grateful-there’s no way he could’ve slept in the van after that, when there was every chance Yunho had kept the girl there for round two in the morning.
There’s thankfully no sight of the older man when they return the next morning, the back doors of the van open and Heechul sitting on the bumper, smoking lazily as he sifts through their box of merchandise. Despite his misery, Changmin is curious to see how they made out last night, and climbs up beside him. Kyuhyun darts a gaze at him, digging through the front seat compartments for his shades, but Changmin ignores him. He doesn’t need a babysitter. He just needs to pretend like everything’s normal. Maybe then this sick feeling will just disappear with the rest of his hangover.
“How’d we make out?”
“Enough to get us gas to the next venue and then some,” Heechul tells him, thumbing through a rumpled bundle of cash before wrapping a rubber band back around it and sticking it in his guitar case. “Sold twenty CDs.”
His voice is nonchalant but when he looks up, he’s grinning, and Changmin matches the expression with more ease than he would’ve thought.
“Wait, really?” Kyuhyun calls from where he’s draped over the front seat, eyes wide. “We seriously made a hundred thousand won last night?”
Heechul pats his guitar case. “You bet your sweet ass we did. Plus the seventy five thousand we got from the cover charge.” His voice turns wistful.
“I’ve been eying this pair of plaid pants…”
Changmin kicks him lightly. “The money still goes four ways, hyung. We should save it, maybe spring for some better take-out tonight. That drive-thru stuff is screwing with Yunho’s-“ He cuts himself off.
The sound of the other man’s name is too loud to his ears, too natural in his mouth. Changmin bites down on his tongue so hard he’s surprised he doesn’t taste blood.
If Heechul caught the reaction, he doesn’t let on, peering around the edge of the open door. “Speaking of that bastard, either of you see him? Said he was going out for coffees…” A snort. “Real chipper, too. I think he got laid last night.”
Changmin pastes a smile on his face even though he feels like he’s been kicked in the chest.
“N-no. Kyunhyun-ah and I just got back, hyung.”
Heechul looks at him for a second, blinking slightly. “Oh. Right. Whatever, be a good boy and help me get all this shit organized and loaded up. We need to take off as soon as he gets back.”
“I’m not a fucking roadie,” Changmin bites out, suddenly agitated, standing and brushing off the back of his pants. “I’m not even the youngest. Get Kyuhyun to help you.”
Before Heechul can retort, Changmin grabs his coat and takes off, already digging in his pockets for his cigarettes. Esse’s. Yunho’s brand.
“Son of a bitch-“ he chokes out at the edge of the parking lot, sinking down in resignation to sit on a parking stop, forcing himself to take a deep breath. It wasn’t Yunho’s brand, it was just a fucking brand, and he needed to get a grip before they started out and he found himself stuck in a confined space with the guy.
Grinding his teeth, Changmin pulls out a cigarette and flicks the lighter, the flame catching the tip and flaring. He inhales deeply, nearly too deep, coughing slightly as he exhales.
“Little early in the day for you, isn’t it, Min-ah?”
Startled, Changmin swears, nearly dropping the cigarette as he lurches to his feet. Anything else dies in his throat as he sees Yunho’s curious expression and slight smile, a paper bag balanced on top a tray of coffees.
“Changmin?” He can almost hear the concern flare when he doesn’t meet Yunho’s eyes or respond to the tease, and swearing in his head,
Changmin tries to get a hold of himself. Just say something, you moron.
“Nothing. I’m fine. Just…just hungover, thought it might help.” He flicks it to the ground, stepping on the flaming butt, ignoring the waste. “Probably shouldn’t, Kyuhyun will bitch. He hates the smell,” he explains needlessly, as if Yunho hasn’t know Kyuhyunnie for years now.
Yunho laughs, moving closer to fall into step with him as they turn back towards the van and Changmin resists the urge to walk faster. “I think that’s the least of the smells we should be getting worried about. We’re all past due for a shower. Should probably stop at a sauna or something tonight…”
Again, Changmin is silent, staring at the ground, even as he can feel Yunho’s eyes boring into the side of his head.
There’s a slight cough, then, “I was going to take the first driving shift, you want to call shotgun?”
Something surges and twists in his chest, and Changmin can’t do this right now, fuck. “No. I mean. No, let Kyuhyun take it, it’s fine.”
He starts walking faster then, shrugging his leather jacket around his shoulders and missing the look on Yunho’s face as he leaves him behind.
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