(for parkourdeer) baby, there's no other
For: parkourdeer
Title: baby, there's no other
Pairings: Kai/D.O, one-sided Xiumin/Luhan
Rating: PG
Word Count: 8,510
Summary: based on this post. Jongin is pretty low-key about being a D.O fanboy, but that doesn't stop him from embarrassing himself when their paths happen to cross. Kyungsoo sees it a little differently.
Author’s Note: dearest recipient, i hope you enjoy this?? i wish i had more time to write another of your prompts because they were all amazing *_* lets talk after reveals!!
“Hyung,” Jongin says uncertainly, “when you said we were going to a pre-recording, I thought you meant we would actually be watching it.”
“Oh hush,” Baekhyun replies, barely glancing back at him before continuing down the dark hallway. “You’re just upset ‘cause we’re not seeing your boyband faves perform.”
Jongin huffs, feeling his face heat up a little, and he walks faster to catch up. “No, Solar did their recording yesterday because--”
“Because it was a goodbye stage for Eden, and Lay is flying to China to do some MCing thing today. I know, you told me already.” He pauses to glance around a corner, then waves for Jongin to follow him. “But you never know, maybe the rest of them are here right now. They have to be part of the ending stage, don’t they?”
“They don’t have to,” Jongin says weakly, but his mind is already running away with possibilities, his heart beating a little faster at the thought that the members of Solar might be backstage with them at this very moment. Of course it’s not enough for Baekhyun to talk him into sneaking backstage at the broadcast station, he also has to get his hopes up about seeing his favourite idol group. Granted, the whole reason Baekhyun wanted to get backstage in the first place was to fulfill his lifelong dream of meeting SNSD, so maybe Jongin should’ve expected this.
“I guess they might be,” he sighs eventually.
Baekhyun turns to grin at him. “So let’s keep going,” he says. “Help me search for Taeyeon noona, and I’ll help you search for-- whichever is the one you like.”
Jongin blushes a little more, thinking of the boy featured in his phone’s lock screen, his desktop background, his morning alarm. “D.O,” he mumbles, falling into step behind Baekhyun again. “He’s called D.O.”
He does his best to keep his nerves at bay until they turn another corner, suddenly finding themselves in a wider hallway lined with doors, a piece of paper taped up on each one. Jongin’s eyes go wide as he realizes what’s written on them.
“Are these dressing rooms?” he hisses to Baekhyun, who rolls his eyes.
“Of course, where else would we be looking?”
“But hyung--”
Baekhyun shushes him, looking around warily, but Jongin raises his voice over it. “If we get caught--”
“We won’t get caught,” Baekhyun cuts him off. “Just follow me, okay?” He starts walking again before Jongin can respond, leaving him to grumble under his breath as he follows.
Around the next corner is another wall of dressing rooms. Jongin takes a few steps, distracted by the names on the doors, before he glances up and freezes. At the other end of the hallway are two men, thankfully facing away from them, but with their backs turned Jongin can clearly read SECURITY printed on their shirts. He grabs Baekhyun’s arm and points, afraid to make any noise, and when Baekhyun finally follows his gaze they nearly trip over each other in their attempt to get back around the corner and out of sight.
“Okay,” Baekhyun whispers after they take a moment to catch their breath, backs pressed against the wall. “Time to go?”
Jongin nods quickly and follows after him, hoping his shoes don’t squeak as they hurry back the way they had come. At the end of the hall, Baekhyun skids to a stop and peers carefully around the corner before turning to Jongin with a serious expression.
“There’s a couple people in the next hallway,” he explains in a low voice, “but if we act casual, like we know what we’re doing, they won’t pay any attention to us. Got it?”
Jongin swallows hard but nods, and Baekhyun takes a deep breath and stands up straight before they step out from around the corner.
There are three other people in the hall, two in staff shirts and the third in a bright red jacket that catches the light. Jongin tries his best to keep his eyes on the ground but can’t help glancing up for another look. Dark stylishly ripped jeans, too many belts - it looks almost like they’re a performer ready to step out on the stage, except they’re back here with staff instead. He’s about to shove his curiosity to the back of his mind and look away when one of the staff steps back a bit, and then Jongin very nearly trips over his own feet.
It’s D.O, in his Eden stage outfit. Just standing in the hall talking with the staff, like he doesn’t look out of place at all. Jongin suddenly can’t hear their conversation over his own heartbeat in his ears.
They get closer and closer and Jongin can’t stop staring, torn between wishing for D.O to glance at him and praying to every god that he won’t. It’s when he and Baekhyun are about to pass right behind the group that Jongin makes himself look away, down at his feet. He takes a moment to congratulate himself on the fact that he’s still moving like a normal human before he registers that he’s literally seconds from brushing past D.O. Actual real life D.O from actual real life Solar, who sings the 15-second riff Jongin has set as his ringtone.
What if this is the closest he’ll ever get?
Suddenly he’s right behind D.O and everything Baekhyun said about going unnoticed flies out of his head. He slows down just a little, drawing the seconds out. If this is his only chance to make some sort of impression, then he’s going to do it. He’s going to stop and say something meaningful.
He takes a deep breath... and can’t think of anything. Jongin can feel his confidence fading. Too soon the moment will be over and he’ll have to live his whole life knowing the chance slipped through his fingers-- so he chooses the first words that come to him, and lets them out softly as he passes behind D.O, not sure if he really wants them to be heard or not.
“You’re so handsome.”
“Jongin,” Baekhyun hisses, grabbing his arm, and reality hits Jongin like a ton of bricks. He actually said the thing, out loud, within earshot of actual real life D.O. Suddenly he can’t make his feet move fast enough, half-dragging Baekhyun the rest of the way down the hall as he speed-walks, red faced, away from his idol.
Once they’re outside on the sidewalk, Baekhyun pulls away and gives Jongin a hard look. “I said act casual,” he scolds. “We could’ve gotten kicked out!”
“We were leaving anyway, hyung,” Jongin points out. He starts inching towards where they had parked, hoping Baekhyun will take the hint. He really just wants to go home.
“Yeah, well, whatever,” Baekhyun huffs, but to Jongin’s relief, he digs his car keys out of his pocket and marches off. “I can’t believe after all that, I didn’t even see Taeyeon.”
He rants on as they walk but Jongin tunes it out, still preoccupied with feeling incredibly stupid. It almost feels like the whole thing happened to someone else, except he remembers the way the words felt coming out of his mouth, and just the thought that he actually said them sends another wave of embarrassment flooding through him.
He shakes his head as he gets into Baekhyun’s car, trying to dispel the thoughts and focus on something else. What had Baekhyun been saying?
“Noona,” Baekhyun stage-whispers, staring at the building in the rearview mirror as they pull out of the parking lot. “Wait for me…”
Jongin tunes him out again. He’s had enough weird fan experience for one day.
--
“You okay?”
Kyungsoo blinks a few times, looking up at Junmyeon as he approaches the patch of floor Kyungsoo is spread out on. There are a few downsides to living in a dorm apartment with five other boys, and one of them is that the lack of sitting space. “I’m fine, hyung. Zitao and Sehun commandeered the entire couch, nothing new.”
“Steal Minseok-hyung’s chair,” Zitao calls without looking up.
“I dare you to try,” Minseok deadpans, and turns a page in the book he’s holding.
“I don’t mean that,” Junmyeon says, sitting down next to Kyungsoo on the floor. “You seemed a little out of it during dinner, is all.”
Kyungsoo shrugs, folding his hands behind his head. “I’m just-- thinking.”
Junmyeon hums. “If there’s something on your mind, you can tell me.”
“It’s not really…” Kyungsoo trails off, glancing over to where Sehun is craning his neck over the back of the couch to look at them, clearly listening in. With a sigh, he sits up on his knees and addresses the whole room. “Do we have any male fans?” he asks.
Junmyeon raises his eyebrows, and Sehun furrows his. “Probably,” Minseok answers, putting his book down. “Maybe not on the fancafe, but I’m sure there must be some guys that listened to the album.”
Kyungsoo nods slowly. “What about at program recordings? Broadcasts, all that.”
“What, like, in the audience?” Junmyeon asks. “I’m not sure, usually I’m too focused on getting the choreo right to get a good look…”
“Why?” Sehun demands, sitting up to lean over the couch. “Did you meet a fanboy, or something?”
Kyungsoo’s mind flits back to the hallway, and how he had jumped a little at the soft voice so close to his ear. He hadn’t registered the words at first, more focused on the boy whispering them. He turned to look just as someone called the boy away, and had only seen his back as he scurried down the hall.
He couldn’t help smiling, watching the boy hurry away around the corner, and found it a little hard to focus on what the staffs were saying once he turned back to their conversation. The whisper kept replaying in Kyungsoo’s head even afterwards, even standing with the rest of Solar during the ending stage - you’re so handsome brushed over his ear; a boy giving him three words he had heard so many times from fans, from girls, but somehow making them different.
He keeps them in the back of his mind along with the image of the boy as he left and name that had called him away: Jongin.
“We didn’t really meet,” Kyungsoo explains, holding back a shiver at the memory. “It was sort of... in-passing.”
“Now I’m wondering, too,” Zitao says, peeking over the back of the couch beside Sehun. “It’d be cool if we had male fans as well, right?”
“I’m sure we can find something on the internet,” Sehun says. “Maybe like a fan forum, or something?”
“Not now, though,” Junmyeon cuts in, standing up. “It’s bedtime. There’s a fansign tomorrow, remember? We all have to get up early.”
“We always get up early,” Zitao huffs.
“Yet you always want to stay up later,” Minseok laughs, pulling him up from the couch.
Kyungsoo heaves himself to his feet and retires to his and Minseok’s shared room after quickly saying goodnight to the other members. As hard as it is to put his curiosities on hold, he knows that the voice in his memory isn’t a priority - at least, not until Solar has some down time, without day-long schedules like fansigns in cities on the other side of the country.
Still, even after the early wake-up call and long drive the next morning, Kyungsoo feels his mood lift as soon as the members enter the venue. It’s been a little more than a year since Solar’s debut, but he’s amazed every time at the amount of fans that show up to see them. Some are holding signs for Lay even though he’s not attending, and Kyungsoo makes a mental note to text Yixing about it when they get back to the dorm.
He smiles brightly at each fan before he signs their album, practiced fingers easily flipping to his page in the album jacket. There are a few boys that come up as well, and Kyungsoo tries to look as friendly as possible. Not many of them speak up much beyond quiet hellos and thank yous, or sometimes giving their names if they don’t claim to be getting a sign for a sister or a friend, but none of them tell him Jongin, and in the noisy hall Kyungsoo can’t tell if any of their voices match the one in his mind.
He wants to tell himself that he’d recognize the boy by his voice alone, if he heard him speak again, but by the end of the fansign Kyungsoo has seen so many people and heard so many voices that he has to admit the voice in his memory might be nothing like what it was in real life.
As the members pile into the car to go back to the dorm, Junmyeon touches his arm. “Alright?”
Kyungsoo nods as he clips in his seat belt. “Just tired.”
“Did you see how many fanboys came up, hyung?” Sehun asks, giving an excited sort of wiggle. “You were right after all.”
Minseok twists around in his seat to look at them. “Were any of them the fan that you met before?”
“I don’t think so,” Kyungsoo sighs.
Junmyeon frowns. “Well, we can still search online, if you want. We can probably find a forum, or even something on twitter, maybe.” He leans forward to tap their manager in the passenger seat. “Hyung, can we borrow your phone?”
“Uh, it’s okay,” Kyungsoo says quickly, but Junmyeon leans back with the phone already in his hands, shaking his head.
“Nope, you’ve got me curious now.” The members all go quiet as Junmyeon types something in and taps the screen a few times, watching him conduct the search intently.
After a few minutes, his face lights up. “Here’s something,” he says, shifting closer to show them the screen. “It’s like a confession blog, I think… Oh, there’s one about you, Minseok-hyung.”
Minseok twists around again, looking bewildered. “What’s it say?”
“Username ‘Deer Xiu’ thinks you’re very good-looking,” Junmyeon tells him, reading through the post. “He says he wishes for Solar to have schedules in China so he can see you up close. And he’s stressed out because of how cute your face is. And he thinks your cheeks are--”
He cuts off when Minseok snatches the phone away, and turns away from them to read the rest of the post himself.
“Your face is getting red, hyung,” Sehun laughs, reaching for the phone. Minseok glares and holds it up out of his reach, but Kyungsoo plucks it right out of his hand.
“‘Don’t diet too much baozi’,” he reads, squinting at the screen. “‘When Solar comes here, ge will treat you to coffee, okay’.”
The other members snicker, but Minseok rolls his eyes and ignores their cooing, turning away to look out the window. His face is definitely a little pink.
Looking back at the phone screen, Kyungsoo scrolls down the page, eyes widening. “Wow, there’s… a lot.”
“Find one about me,” Zitao says, shifting close to peer at the screen. Kyungsoo hums, scrolling a little further and stopping on a post titled ‘Tao chic!!!!’
“He says you’re very cool,” Kyungsoo tells Zitao. “He likes your style and he’s started taking advice from your clothes at the airport recently.”
Zitao grins, squeezing Kyungsoo’s arm. “Another one, hyung.”
“There’s one about how impressive your rap is,” Kyungsoo reads, scrolling again. “Most of them are saying they think you’re cool and handsome.”
“I guess they’ve never seen you around bugs,” Sehun sniffs. Zitao sticks his tongue out at him.
“Are there any about you, Kyungsoo?” Junmyeon asks, but Sehun taps the screen before he can answer.
“There’s one,” he says, leaning over to read the title. “‘Subject: cute D.O’.
Kyungsoo blushes and tries to hand the phone back to their manager, but Minseok intercepts. He skims the post before smiling sweetly and clearing his throat. “‘D.O is so cool on stage’,” he reads out animatedly, “‘but in every behind-the-scenes photo he’s smiling so cutely, it hurts my heart’. Crying face. ‘It’s like two different people. I want to show people his charisma, but at the same time, he’s so squishy’.”
“Squishy?” Sehun repeats, but Kyungsoo jabs him in the ribs before he can laugh about it.
They pass the phone back and forth until they arrive back at the dorm, but by then it’s gotten late and Junmyeon insists everyone get ready for sleep. Kyungsoo is the last to shower, letting the yawning maknaes take their turn first, and as he brushes his teeth his mind wanders back to the fanboy posts - in particular, the first one they had read. While most of them were more flattering than anything, none had made any of them blush like Minseok had at Deer Xiu’s words.
He’s still thinking about it when he enters the dark bedroom, and nearly jumps as Minseok rolls over in bed to face him. “Hyung, you’re still up?”
Minseok hums and turns his head up towards the ceiling. “Just thinking.”
Kyungsoo almost asks what about, but he has a feeling he already knows. He climbs into bed and mirrors Minseok, looking up at the ceiling and the faint light from outside the window reflected there. They’re silent for a while, lying in the dark with their eyes still open, until Kyungsoo speaks up again. “Would you?”
Minseok sighs a little, like he was expecting the question. “Would I what?”
“Go for coffee with that fan.”
Minseok goes quiet for a moment, the silence filled by the noise of the street far below the open window. Finally Kyungsoo hears him take a breath- but he stops, sighs again instead. “I couldn’t.”
Kyungsoo turns to look at him. “Why not?”
“You know why,” Minseok says, turning his head the other way, towards the wall. He sounds tired, suddenly. “We’re in here, and he’s… out there.”
What if things we’re different? Kyungsoo wants to ask, but he hesitates too long, and Minseok rolls over, his whole body facing away, and the conversation is over.
Kyungsoo does his best to follow his example, closing his eyes and waiting for sleep. Their quiet breathing almost sounds like patterned whispering after a while, and he can’t help thinking of the voice again, just behind him but still too far away. This time, though, Kyungsoo lets his mind run off with it, taking the soft you’re so handsome and imagining all the other things that boy - whoever he was - could whisper to him in the dark.
It feels a little weird, almost selfish, but Kyungsoo pushes those thoughts away, squeezing his eyes shut. If he focuses enough, he can almost feel the words brushing across the back of his neck.
--
As he contemplates his bedroom ceiling, Jongin wonders for the nth time just how hard one has to wish in order for the ground to open up and swallow them.
It’s been a few days since seeing D.O at the broadcast station, which he’s taken to calling The Incident in his mind, but in that time he hasn’t been able to bring himself to do much other than mope around in his room. Not that it’s really a conscious decision, moping around - more like he keeps ignoring invitations to go out, and then it just happens.
He isn’t entertained by his usual pastimes anymore, like surfing the internet for Solar blogs and D.O fancams. Looking at D.O through a screen just reminds him of that time that he looked at him in real life, and then he remembers he’s trying not to think about The Incident and tries to distract himself, and the cycle starts over.
Jongin almost wishes he could forget it ever happened so he could go back to feeling normal about D.O. He still draws Jongin’s eye in every performance, and Jongin still feels his face getting a little warm when he looks at photos of him, but it had always been like that, since he saw their first stage at Dream Concert last year and D.O’s adlib over the last chorus made his jaw drop. There’s always been something about D.O that drew him in - maybe the cool expression in his teaser headshots, or his smooth voice that first caught Jongin’s attention, or maybe everything else, from his carefully styled hair to his heart-shaped lips all the way down to his pale knees peeking out from the rips in his jeans in the Eden music video. Whatever it was, it led Jongin to save D.O_solo_riff.mp3 as his morning alarm and keep an entire folder of photos stored on his phone. From the get-go, Jongin knew he was in deep.
But seeing D.O in person, even for just those few seconds, made him seem… like a real person. Not that Jongin didn’t think he was real before, but it’s different now.
He used to imagine somehow meeting D.O, like seeing the Solar members on the street and sharing some moment with him before going separate ways and living the rest of his life with the peace that comes with having a satisfying interaction with your favourite idol. But now it’s other things - meeting D.O alone, somewhere with no one else around, being close enough to touch--
It’s embarrassing, like the memory of The Incident is embarrassing, and what he said out loud to D.O is embarrassing. And so, he stays in his room, lamenting it.
But, nothing lasts forever, and Jongin sits up when his bedroom door is suddenly thrown open.
“Your mom said you were in here,” Chanyeol says from the doorway, giving a little wave. “‘Sup.”
Jongin flops back down on his bed with a sigh. “We have phones for a reason, hyung.”
“I know,” Chanyeol huffs, “but last time I called you to hang out, you said you didn’t want to.”
“That’s because I didn’t want to,” Jongin tells him. “And I still don’t.”
Chanyeol groans, stepping forward to jump onto the bed and lie down on top of Jongin’s feet. Jongin tries to wriggle them out from beneath him, but Chanyeol doesn’t budge. “Come on, Jongin, please?”
“I’m not in the mood, hyung,” Jongin says, trying to sound stern. Chanyeol falls silent for a few seconds, then sits up to look down at him with a worried expression.
“Is this about that time you and Baekhyun went to--”
“No,” Jongin says quickly, then turns over to squint at Chanyeol. “Why, did Baekhyun say something?”
“He said you were acting weird when you guys left,” Chanyeol says hesitantly. “Did something happen?”
“Nope,” Jongin sighs, rolling back over. “Nothing at all.”
He can feel Chanyeol’s gaze on the back of his head, knowing that he can probably see right through the lie, but Jongin has never in his life wanted to discuss something less. Luckily, Chanyeol lets it go.
“Well, if there’s no real reason you don’t want to hang out,” he says slowly, then lunges forward to cling onto Jongin’s arm. “Will you please come out tonight? Please, Jongin? Pretty please?”
Jongin shoves him off and sits up with a groan. “Why, what’s happening tonight?”
“Jongdae’s birthday,” Chanyeol explains, rocking a little in excitement. “He found this club he wants to go to, with dancing and booze and stuff.”
“I’m underage,” Jongin says flatly, but Chanyeol holds up a hand.
“You know Jongdae, he always knows a guy who knows a guy. He told me he can get you in.” His grin abruptly turns into a pout, and he looks down at Jongin’s blankets. “He really wants you to come. I really want you to come. Please, Jongin?”
Jongin sighs and leans back against his pillows, arms crossed. “I don’t know, I don’t really feel like--”
“It’ll be fun once you get there, I promise,” Chanyeol urges. “We can help you get whatever’s on your mind off your mind.”
Maybe Chanyeol is right, Jongin considers, maybe getting out of his room and going out with friends will help him stop thinking about what happened backstage. Or maybe it’s just the puppydog eyes Chanyeol is giving him that are swaying his judgement.
“Ugh.” Jongin scrubs his hands over his face and looks back at the ceiling. “Fine, I’ll come.”
Chanyeol wraps all four of his limbs around Jongin and nuzzles against him, grinning so wide Jongin is a little worried for his face muscles. “It’s gonna be awesome, I swear,” he says when he lets go, and he sounds so sure that Jongin can’t help giving him a small smile in return.
When Chanyeol leaves, relaying carpool plans as he hops off the bed and skips out of the room, Jongin lies back down and reaches under his pillows for his phone. He holds it up over his face, lets out a long breath, and taps the lock button.
The photo he has set on his lockscreen is of D.O on stage, smiling as he raises one hand to wave at the crowd. It’s from a few weeks ago, a fantaken photo from Solar’s showcase for Eden. Jongin had cropped it to fit the screen, but even through the blurry and confetti-speckled background, an LED-lit sign is visible, proclaiming ‘I ♡ D.O’.
Jongin can’t remember how many times he had looked at the photo and wished to be in the crowd. Even now he still feels a bit of longing, but it’s coupled with the weird feeling of embarrassment, like everything else. He considers changing the photo to something different, even looks through his camera roll for something to switch it with.
In the end he leaves it unchanged, and shoves his phone back under his pillows before dragging himself off the bed to change into clothes he can leave the house in.
By the time he steps out of Chanyeol’s car in the club’s parking lot, Jongin feels a little better, and the bass beat he can hear thrumming out of the building only encourages him. Jongdae meets them at the front doors with a few others, and together they cross the threshold into a mass of light and sound and moving bodies. The music is loud enough that Jongin can hardly hear himself think, and he welcomes it.
He lets himself get dragged to the dance floor by Chanyeol, and stays even when he and the rest of their group leave to crowd around the bar. He tips his head back and welcomes the music to fill it, blocking out everything else as he moves to the heavy beat, joining the rhythm of everyone around him. The beat changes, though, into something a little slower but distantly familiar, and Jongin’s head suddenly snaps up as D.O’s voice blares out of the speakers and an Eden remix begins to play.
He stops moving, expecting every thought he’s been trying to keep at bay to come rushing to the forefront of his mind, but instead all he can picture is the dancefloor, this time not alone, but with D.O. They dance with their eyes locked, Jongin’s sometimes flickering down to follow every twist of D.O’s body. The others around them push them closer until they’re almost chest-to-chest, moving together, and Jongin can feel D.O’s eyes on him, his body heat through their clothing, his breath as he leans even closer--
Jongin stumbles away from the other dancers and makes a shaky beeline to the bar counter. He gets a skeptical look instead of asked for ID, but can’t make himself feel thankful just yet. The alcohol burns going down his throat, but he keeps drinking until his thoughts are too blurry to put together, and the bass feels loud enough to drown out the voice crooning through the speakers.
--
Of course, as Jongin learns the next morning when his phone goes off loudly right next to his head, it was a bad idea.
Through the painful throbbing haze in his head, he somehow manages to shut off the ringer and answer it before the sixth ring, and groans a little in greeting.
“Jongin,” Baekhyun sing-songs through the phone, “can you do me a favour today?”
Jongin squints at the watery-looking numbers on his clock and calculates he won’t be alive for another few hours, at least. “Too early,” he croaks.
“It’s almost eleven.”
“Early,” Jongin repeats.
He hears Baekhyun sigh on the other end. “I know you went to town last night, but I’m the only one working in the cafe today,” he whines. “Can you please come watch the shop while I take a lunch break? I’ll pay you back, promise.”
“Hyung,” Jongin says seriously, “I feel like I’m dying.”
“Oh please,” Baekhyun sniffs. “You’re young and strong and resilient. Show up in one hour, okay?”
And so Jongin finds himself behind the counter at Kamong cafe, a little asleep and more than a little hungover, glaring at Baekhyun as he skips out the doors. It is only forty-five minutes, he supposes, and on the bright side, Baekhyun let him flip the Open sign around so he won’t actually have to deal with any customers. On the not-so-bright side, the painkillers he took have yet to kick in, and Jongin’s headache twinges with every gurgle from the coffee machines.
He rests his elbows on the counter and lets his head hang. Maybe once the pounding in his temples dissipates a little, he’ll stand up straight and make himself a coffee. For the time being, he closes his eyes and resists the urge to count the seconds until Baekhyun returns.
The bell over the door jingles only a few minutes later, and for a moment Jongin dares hope that it’s Baekhyun, come to tell him he was kidding about the whole thing and that he can go back to sleep. He peeks up through his bangs at the doorway, but it’s three boys instead, pushing inside hurriedly and very clearly ignoring the Closed sign hanging there. Jongin very nearly groans out loud.
The boys seem to ignore him too, apparently not realizing their mistake, and two start heading over to a table. Jongin straightens up hastily, blinking a few times to stop the room from spinning as he comes around the counter to head them off. “I’m sorry,” he starts, making the third boy jump a little and turn to face him, “we’re closed right now, you can’t-- oh.”
It’s Suho, Solar’s leader, out of makeup and stage clothes but still standing in the middle of Kamong like it’s a normal place for him to be. Jongin immediately wonders if he had fallen asleep at the counter, and this is all just some weird dream brought on by his headache - but the said pain in his head still feels pretty real. He looks past Suho to the other two boys sitting down at the farthest table, recognizing them as the youngest member Sehun and a very pale D.O.
Thankfully, Suho doesn’t give Jongin much time to dwell on the last part. “I’m really sorry about this,” he says in a rush. “We just need a few minutes to call our manager, that’s it. We won’t stay long, we just need him to send a car--”
“It’s okay,” Jongin squeaks, more concerned with the fact that Suho is speaking to him at all. “You can take as long as you need to, really, I was just-- yeah.”
“Thank you,” Suho sighs in relief, giving him a dazzling, grateful smile. Jongin feels like he might faint.
Instead, he glances back over at D.O, taking in how pale he looks and the protective way Sehun is curled around his arm. “Is he alright?” he asks before he can stop himself.
“He’s a bit shaken up,” Suho answers, following his gaze. “We had some free time today, so we were just walking around here for something to do, but there was a - a group of fans, following us. Nothing happened,” he adds quickly, when Jongin frowns. “They just… got a little too close.”
He excuses himself to make the phone call, leaving Jongin to continue watching D.O’s almost uncomfortably blank face until he remembers his manners and slips back behind the counter to make them each a warm drink. Eventually Sehun unwinds from D.O and wanders over, and Suho joins him a few minutes later, reporting that their ride is on its way. They both look tired up close, Jongin notes, but they still accept their teas with smiles and polite thank-yous, and it makes his cheeks feel a little warm.
As he takes the last steaming cup over to D.O, Jongin tries to act calm and collected. He refuses to let his mind stray anywhere near The Incident, or whatever it came up with at the club that he hasn’t thought of a name for yet - he pushes all of it away to focus on the here and now: D.O sitting in front of him, curled in a little, looking smaller than usual and just a bit freaked out.
Without makeup his eyes look wider, somehow, especially when he glances up at Jongin, and his unstyled hair flops across his forehead in a soft-looking way. Jongin is a little amazed at the difference between the D.O he’s watched on stage so many times and the person he’s seeing right now, without any screen between them.
He places the cup carefully on the table, and D.O smiles faintly at it before he drops his gaze to his lap. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
Jongin isn’t really sure what he imagined D.O’s first words to him to be, but it definitely wasn’t that. He blinks a few times. “For what?”
“For making you deal with us.” Keeping his eyes downcast, D.O folds his hands together on the tabletop. “I tried to tell them you were closed, but--”
“I don’t mind,” Jongin interrupts. “I don’t think anyone would. I mean, you guys are--”
“Idols, yeah,” D.O sighs, looking up at him again, “but we’re still just… people. You can kick us out if you want to.”
“I don’t want to,” Jongin says quickly. “To be honest, I only had the closed sign up because I had a headache. But it’s gone now,” he adds when D.O narrows his eyes at him.
“...Are you sure?”
“Yeah, it disappeared as soon as you walked in.” A half-truth - Jongin can still feel the edges of it pulsing in his skull, but if he focuses on D.O instead, then he can almost forget that it’s there. “You did me a favour, really.”
D.O laughs at that, quietly, and finally curls his hands around the cup on the table. Satisfied, Jongin smiles back at him. At least that blank look is off his face.
It doesn’t take long for Solar’s manager to show up, screeching to a halt in front of Kamong and all but vaulting himself through the door. He rushes Sehun and Suho out first, the latter pausing to give Jongin another grateful smile before he’s hurried out into the car, then comes back to hover worriedly by the table as D.O stands up slowly.
“I’m alright,” D.O says, brushing off the hand his manager offers to him, and looks back at Jongin with a smile. “Thank you, uh--”
It takes Jongin a moment to realize that he’s fumbling for a name. He worries for another half-second about his response time being too fast, but ultimately decides not to worry about it. D.O is smiling at him and he feels like he’s going to melt, nothing can bring him down. “I’m Jongin.”
As soon as he says it, D.O’s expression changes, his eyes widening, and the longer he goes without responding, the more anxious Jongin gets. Perhaps in his excitement he mispronounced his own name?
“D.O,” the manager calls impatiently from the doorway, and D.O blinks, coming back to himself.
“Jongin,” D.O repeats, and Jongin nods slowly. “Jongin, I... sorry.” He shakes his head a little as he backs up towards the door. “I have to go, but-- thank you, Jongin. For the tea.”
Then the manager is ushering him out the door, and within a few seconds the car pulls away. Eventually the cafe is calm again, the sign on the door still flipped to Closed, and Jongin is left with the quiet - and, a little louder, the memory of D.O saying his name, repeating it. Taking it with him.
Jong blushes so hard he feels like his whole body must be flushed with it, and escapes to the back room to splash cold water on his face. He’s tempted to stay there until Baekhyun returns, maybe stick his whole head under the tap for good measure, but he manages to drag himself back to the counter and slump over it again.
At least his head isn’t pounding anymore - now it’s his heart, beating just a little quicker whenever he thinks of D.O’s mouth forming his name.
--
Kyungsoo doesn’t especially like the company building on the best of days, let alone on days when the members are herded into a car so early that even Junmyeon is only vaguely awake - but with Yixing still in China, there isn’t much for Solar to do. Not that there’s anything to be done at the company building, but none of the executives want a repeat of the emergency pick up at Kamong the day before, and so Kyungsoo lets himself be led through the halls to an empty conference room, and collapses into the first chair he sees.
They get the room to themselves, five water bottles already waiting for them on the centre table, as well as a short stack of papers their manager tells them to look over - but after he leaves, Junmyeon takes those and sits at one end of the long table to read them himself. The other members sit with Kyungsoo at the opposite end, slumping into their chairs and trying their best to keep their eyes open. No matter how much space they’re given, the fact remains that the company building is boring.
“Why couldn’t they just let us stay at the dorm instead of waking us up early to come here?” Sehun whines, breaking the tired silence. He pulls his feet up onto his chair and spins it around in slow circles. “We could’ve caught up on sleep.”
“Sleep here,” Zitao mumbles from where he’s half-sprawled on the table, head pillowed on his arms.
“In a bed, I mean,” Sehun huffs, then turns to Minseok sitting across from him. “Hyung, can you ask manager-hyung to drive us back? Please?”
Minseok lets out a long breath, rolling his water bottle back and forth on the tabletop. “Just wait a bit. Let Junmyeon finish what he’s reading first.”
Sehun goes back to spinning, heaving a dramatic sigh that Kyungsoo can’t help but agree with. He’s grateful for the pseudo day off, but he also can’t stop thinking about the boy from the cafe, about Jongin, about Jongin whispering to him as he brushed past--
“You’ll make yourself sick,” Junmyeon warns from across the room, not looking up from what he’s reading. Sehun stops spinning and flips forward on the table instead, mimicking Zitao’s pose. Zitao shifts over a little, bumping their elbows together.
“You guys are making me tired,” Minseok says, rubbing his eyes.
“I can do a coffee run,” Kyungsoo says suddenly, the idea slowly forming in his head as he stands up from his chair.
Junmyeon does look up then, his brow furrowed. “Are you sure? We could ask the staff instead.”
“Being outside will wake me up,” Kyungsoo tells him, already slipping his jacket on, “and it’s early enough that I don’t think too many fans would be around.”
Junmyeon still looks uneasy, but Kyungsoo is already opening the door, not giving them time to think too hard about his idea and stop him. “Just… be quick, okay?” he calls as Kyungsoo steps out.
“Don’t get caught,” Sehun adds, muffled by the table.
He doesn’t. A few hallways and double-doors later, Kyungsoo is speed-walking the few blocks it is to Kamong, pretending not to see every other cafe and coffee shop he passes along the way. It feels like a long time before the building finally comes into view, yet at the same time not nearly enough time to prepare for actually going inside. He slows down by the front windows, staring intently at the Open sign for a moment to brace himself, then finally steps inside.
Warm coffee-scented air greets him, and Kyungsoo relaxes a little. There are a few customers sitting quietly around the edges of the cafe, but none of them give him more than a cursory glance. He takes a deep breath before looking over to the front counter - but Jongin isn’t there. There’s a shorter boy instead, raising his eyebrows at him, and Kyungsoo hurries over before anyone starts staring.
“Is there a manager around?” he asks quietly before the boy can greet him.
The boy smiles a little, pointing to his nametag. Kyungsoo squints at it, and notices the tiny star sticker pasted in the A of ‘BAEKHYUN’. “I’m basically as good as one,” Baekhyun says smugly. “Can I help you with something?”
Kyungsoo swallows nervously. “There was-- yesterday, a boy working here, Jongin--”
“Jongin doesn’t work here,” Baekhyun laughs. “Did he tell you that? He was just watching the shop for me.” Kyungsoo’s face falls, but Baekhyun smirks as he gives him a once-over. “I can give you his number, if you want.”
“Th-that’s okay,” Kyungsoo says quickly, feeling a blush spread over his cheeks, “I just want to talk to him, it’s fine--”
“Okay,” Baekhyun sing-songs, and pulls his phone out of his apron pocket. “Let me call him for you.”
Kyungsoo splutters, but Baekhyun is already holding the phone to his ear. He knows he has only a few seconds to think of something to say to Jongin when he answers, and gets as far as ‘this is Solar’s D.O, please don’t scream’ when a burst of tinny music cuts off his thoughts.
It’s coming from within the shop, and Baekhyun crouches down for a moment to retrieve a cellphone from under the counter. “He must’ve left it here,” he sighs, putting it down on the countertop between them. “He was acting weird when he left yesterday, I guess he forgot it.”
Kyungsoo stares down at the device, a little shocked to hear his own voice singing out of it. “Oh, this song,” Baekhyun says, following his gaze. “It’s by his favourite band, I think. Do you know it?”
It’s the last chorus of Eden, Kyungsoo has sung it hundreds of times. “Sort of,” he says weakly.
“Anyway, I’m sorry about this,” Baekhyun sighs, tapping the screen to shut the ringtone off. “I could still give you his number if you want? You can call him later, after he comes to pick it--”
“Hyung,” someone calls, and Kyungsoo whirls around to see Jongin striding up to the counter as the front door falls closed behind him. “Is my phone here? I think I left it yesterday.”
Kyungsoo can’t help staring as he gets closer. He looks more comfortable without a cafe apron on, but still about as tired as the day before, and he stops right next to Kyungsoo and snatches his phone up off the counter. “Did you do something to it?” he asks, eyes narrowed at Baekhyun, who holds his hands up innocently.
“I did nothing except offer to give a stranger your digits,” he says, gesturing at Kyungsoo, and Jongin finally turns to look at him. The suspicious expression immediately slides off his face, and Kyungsoo resists the urge to drop his gaze, instead staring right back at him. He’s handsome, up close, even with his eyes widened in surprise and his mouth hanging open a little bit.
Baekhyun looks back and forth between them, mouth curling into a smirk. “Unless he’s not a stranger…?”
Jongin starts an indignant reply but Baekhyun hushes him, grabbing each of their shoulders and dragging them along the counter to the back room. “I don’t really want to know,” he tells them, ushering them inside, “but I don’t need you causing a scene and holding up cafe traffic. Play nice!” he calls before shutting the door, and nearly all sound from the shop is cut off, leaving Kyungsoo with Jongin in the almost-silence.
It’s a little uncomfortable. Kyungsoo had rushed to the shop to speak to Jongin, but now that he’s here and they’re alone, he’s not sure how to look at Jongin, let alone how to begin.
Luckily, Jongin speaks first. “I’m sorry if I said something wrong, yesterday,” he mumbles, eyes on the floor. “When you were leaving, I mean. You just-- you looked like--”
“You didn’t say anything wrong,” Kyungsoo assures him, but Jongin keeps his mouth shut, still looking down. Kyungsoo hazards taking a step closer to him, and Jongin doesn’t move away.
“We’ve met before, right?” he asks, quieter.
“Yeah,” Jongin replies hesitantly. “Yesterday.”
“Before that, though.” Another step. “Haven’t we?”
He’s close enough to see the blush on Jongin’s cheeks. “You-- do you remember that?”
Kyungsoo nods and takes another step, now within touching distance, and Jongin still hasn’t moved. “You called me handsome,” he murmurs. Jongin squeaks, his whole face red. Kyungsoo can hardly believe that this boy who blushes so easily is the same one whose whispers made him shiver.
“It was nice,” Kyungsoo continues, keeping his voice low and watching Jongin’s reactions closely. “I thought about it for days, I couldn’t get your voice out of my head. But you know what that’s like.” Jongin raises his head then, giving Kyungsoo a confused look. “You’re my fan, right?”
“Y-yes,” Jongin says, in a small, breathless voice, and Kyungsoo takes another step forward, close enough that he can just lean up a little bit and--
“We shouldn’t,” Jongin whispers suddenly.
Kyungsoo pulls back, frowning. “Why not?”
“Because you’re you,” Jongin says, a little exasperated. “I mean, you’re… amazing, and talented and inspiring, and I’m - I’m not--”
Kyungsoo hushes him. “I’m not D.O right now, okay?” he tells him. “I’m just me. And you’re just you.”
Jongin seems to accept it for a moment, but when Kyungsoo tries to lean in again, he turns his face away. “But I know your blood type,” he says in a rush, “and your birthday and your hometown, and what year you auditioned and how long you trained, and - and I still don’t know you, not really.” He pauses for breath, turning back to look at Kyungsoo carefully. “And you don’t know any of those things about me, so how can you say--”
Kyungsoo touches his hand and he stops, still watching him.
“You’re right,” Kyungsoo says quietly, “I don’t know.” Gently, he winds his fingers around Jongin’s and presses their hands together. “But I want to.”
Jongin lets out a shaky breath and, after a moment, presses back. This time, when Kyungsoo leans in, Jongin lets him.
--
Jongin doesn’t realize until much later that they’re really doing this whole relationship thing backwards. On the other hand, he supposes, it was nice to get the first bit of kissing out of the way, since the get-to-know-me part is really, in the long run, more intimate. And with D.O’s constantly-busy schedule, it’s nice for Jongin to be able to spend the short times they have together touching him, instead of pretending he doesn’t want to.
It helps that kissing D.O is a million times better than Jongin ever imagined - not that he thought a lot about kissing D.O until very, very recently, but he still wouldn’t have been able to come up with anything close to the real feeling of D.O’s mouth moving against his.
Kyungsoo’s mouth, actually. It’s Kyungsoo now - it had been difficult at first to make the switch in his mind, but then it slipped out, once, when they broke apart for breath, and since then the thought of the needy, breathy noise Kyungsoo had made after that makes it easier to remember.
“Jongin, are you listening?”
Jongin blinks a few times, zoning back in. Kyungsoo, sitting across the table from him, coffee in hand and a pout on his lips. He has his jacket’s hood up, even though no one in Kamong ever seems to recognize him, and Baekhyun always makes sure the secluded corner table is theirs, anyway. Jongin smiles sheepishly and leans forward on his elbows. “Sorry, what were we talking about?”
“Vacation time,” Kyungsoo huffs. “The CEO promised. If we do well next comeback.”
“Eden did pretty well,” Jongin hums. “It got third on Inkigayo that one time.”
Kyungsoo sighs, looking down at his drink. “Yeah, but can we do that twice in a row?”
“Of course,” Jongin says, beaming as he leans back. He’s already promised to set D.O’s image teaser as his desktop background and Chanyeol’s, and maybe even Baekhyun’s, just so he won’t forget who Jongin’s favourite member is again.
His phone lock screen, though, he’ll leave as-is. Since he finally changed it to something other than Kyungsoo’s face, he can’t go back - and besides, photos of Kyungsoo’s smile can’t compare to how it looks in real life, without a screen over top.
Like right now, as Kyungsoo slowly smiles back at him. He grabs Jongin’s hand under the table and tugs on it, making him lean forward again to meet him halfway--
They’re interrupted by a phone ringing, and Jongin can tell from the boring phone-ring sound that it’s Kyungsoo’s before he even looks. They both gaze down at it where it sits on the table, lighting up and making noise, but they don’t move away from each other.
“Well,” Kyungsoo says, staring down at his phone but making no move to answer it. “That’s probably Junmyeon-hyung, telling me to come home.”
Jongin nods slowly, watching Kyungsoo’s face instead. “Are you gonna answer it?”
“I should,” Kyungsoo says, looking up at him again. He smiles.
They let the phone ring a few more times.
Title: baby, there's no other
Pairings: Kai/D.O, one-sided Xiumin/Luhan
Rating: PG
Word Count: 8,510
Summary: based on this post. Jongin is pretty low-key about being a D.O fanboy, but that doesn't stop him from embarrassing himself when their paths happen to cross. Kyungsoo sees it a little differently.
Author’s Note: dearest recipient, i hope you enjoy this?? i wish i had more time to write another of your prompts because they were all amazing *_* lets talk after reveals!!
“Hyung,” Jongin says uncertainly, “when you said we were going to a pre-recording, I thought you meant we would actually be watching it.”
“Oh hush,” Baekhyun replies, barely glancing back at him before continuing down the dark hallway. “You’re just upset ‘cause we’re not seeing your boyband faves perform.”
Jongin huffs, feeling his face heat up a little, and he walks faster to catch up. “No, Solar did their recording yesterday because--”
“Because it was a goodbye stage for Eden, and Lay is flying to China to do some MCing thing today. I know, you told me already.” He pauses to glance around a corner, then waves for Jongin to follow him. “But you never know, maybe the rest of them are here right now. They have to be part of the ending stage, don’t they?”
“They don’t have to,” Jongin says weakly, but his mind is already running away with possibilities, his heart beating a little faster at the thought that the members of Solar might be backstage with them at this very moment. Of course it’s not enough for Baekhyun to talk him into sneaking backstage at the broadcast station, he also has to get his hopes up about seeing his favourite idol group. Granted, the whole reason Baekhyun wanted to get backstage in the first place was to fulfill his lifelong dream of meeting SNSD, so maybe Jongin should’ve expected this.
“I guess they might be,” he sighs eventually.
Baekhyun turns to grin at him. “So let’s keep going,” he says. “Help me search for Taeyeon noona, and I’ll help you search for-- whichever is the one you like.”
Jongin blushes a little more, thinking of the boy featured in his phone’s lock screen, his desktop background, his morning alarm. “D.O,” he mumbles, falling into step behind Baekhyun again. “He’s called D.O.”
He does his best to keep his nerves at bay until they turn another corner, suddenly finding themselves in a wider hallway lined with doors, a piece of paper taped up on each one. Jongin’s eyes go wide as he realizes what’s written on them.
“Are these dressing rooms?” he hisses to Baekhyun, who rolls his eyes.
“Of course, where else would we be looking?”
“But hyung--”
Baekhyun shushes him, looking around warily, but Jongin raises his voice over it. “If we get caught--”
“We won’t get caught,” Baekhyun cuts him off. “Just follow me, okay?” He starts walking again before Jongin can respond, leaving him to grumble under his breath as he follows.
Around the next corner is another wall of dressing rooms. Jongin takes a few steps, distracted by the names on the doors, before he glances up and freezes. At the other end of the hallway are two men, thankfully facing away from them, but with their backs turned Jongin can clearly read SECURITY printed on their shirts. He grabs Baekhyun’s arm and points, afraid to make any noise, and when Baekhyun finally follows his gaze they nearly trip over each other in their attempt to get back around the corner and out of sight.
“Okay,” Baekhyun whispers after they take a moment to catch their breath, backs pressed against the wall. “Time to go?”
Jongin nods quickly and follows after him, hoping his shoes don’t squeak as they hurry back the way they had come. At the end of the hall, Baekhyun skids to a stop and peers carefully around the corner before turning to Jongin with a serious expression.
“There’s a couple people in the next hallway,” he explains in a low voice, “but if we act casual, like we know what we’re doing, they won’t pay any attention to us. Got it?”
Jongin swallows hard but nods, and Baekhyun takes a deep breath and stands up straight before they step out from around the corner.
There are three other people in the hall, two in staff shirts and the third in a bright red jacket that catches the light. Jongin tries his best to keep his eyes on the ground but can’t help glancing up for another look. Dark stylishly ripped jeans, too many belts - it looks almost like they’re a performer ready to step out on the stage, except they’re back here with staff instead. He’s about to shove his curiosity to the back of his mind and look away when one of the staff steps back a bit, and then Jongin very nearly trips over his own feet.
It’s D.O, in his Eden stage outfit. Just standing in the hall talking with the staff, like he doesn’t look out of place at all. Jongin suddenly can’t hear their conversation over his own heartbeat in his ears.
They get closer and closer and Jongin can’t stop staring, torn between wishing for D.O to glance at him and praying to every god that he won’t. It’s when he and Baekhyun are about to pass right behind the group that Jongin makes himself look away, down at his feet. He takes a moment to congratulate himself on the fact that he’s still moving like a normal human before he registers that he’s literally seconds from brushing past D.O. Actual real life D.O from actual real life Solar, who sings the 15-second riff Jongin has set as his ringtone.
What if this is the closest he’ll ever get?
Suddenly he’s right behind D.O and everything Baekhyun said about going unnoticed flies out of his head. He slows down just a little, drawing the seconds out. If this is his only chance to make some sort of impression, then he’s going to do it. He’s going to stop and say something meaningful.
He takes a deep breath... and can’t think of anything. Jongin can feel his confidence fading. Too soon the moment will be over and he’ll have to live his whole life knowing the chance slipped through his fingers-- so he chooses the first words that come to him, and lets them out softly as he passes behind D.O, not sure if he really wants them to be heard or not.
“You’re so handsome.”
“Jongin,” Baekhyun hisses, grabbing his arm, and reality hits Jongin like a ton of bricks. He actually said the thing, out loud, within earshot of actual real life D.O. Suddenly he can’t make his feet move fast enough, half-dragging Baekhyun the rest of the way down the hall as he speed-walks, red faced, away from his idol.
Once they’re outside on the sidewalk, Baekhyun pulls away and gives Jongin a hard look. “I said act casual,” he scolds. “We could’ve gotten kicked out!”
“We were leaving anyway, hyung,” Jongin points out. He starts inching towards where they had parked, hoping Baekhyun will take the hint. He really just wants to go home.
“Yeah, well, whatever,” Baekhyun huffs, but to Jongin’s relief, he digs his car keys out of his pocket and marches off. “I can’t believe after all that, I didn’t even see Taeyeon.”
He rants on as they walk but Jongin tunes it out, still preoccupied with feeling incredibly stupid. It almost feels like the whole thing happened to someone else, except he remembers the way the words felt coming out of his mouth, and just the thought that he actually said them sends another wave of embarrassment flooding through him.
He shakes his head as he gets into Baekhyun’s car, trying to dispel the thoughts and focus on something else. What had Baekhyun been saying?
“Noona,” Baekhyun stage-whispers, staring at the building in the rearview mirror as they pull out of the parking lot. “Wait for me…”
Jongin tunes him out again. He’s had enough weird fan experience for one day.
--
“You okay?”
Kyungsoo blinks a few times, looking up at Junmyeon as he approaches the patch of floor Kyungsoo is spread out on. There are a few downsides to living in a dorm apartment with five other boys, and one of them is that the lack of sitting space. “I’m fine, hyung. Zitao and Sehun commandeered the entire couch, nothing new.”
“Steal Minseok-hyung’s chair,” Zitao calls without looking up.
“I dare you to try,” Minseok deadpans, and turns a page in the book he’s holding.
“I don’t mean that,” Junmyeon says, sitting down next to Kyungsoo on the floor. “You seemed a little out of it during dinner, is all.”
Kyungsoo shrugs, folding his hands behind his head. “I’m just-- thinking.”
Junmyeon hums. “If there’s something on your mind, you can tell me.”
“It’s not really…” Kyungsoo trails off, glancing over to where Sehun is craning his neck over the back of the couch to look at them, clearly listening in. With a sigh, he sits up on his knees and addresses the whole room. “Do we have any male fans?” he asks.
Junmyeon raises his eyebrows, and Sehun furrows his. “Probably,” Minseok answers, putting his book down. “Maybe not on the fancafe, but I’m sure there must be some guys that listened to the album.”
Kyungsoo nods slowly. “What about at program recordings? Broadcasts, all that.”
“What, like, in the audience?” Junmyeon asks. “I’m not sure, usually I’m too focused on getting the choreo right to get a good look…”
“Why?” Sehun demands, sitting up to lean over the couch. “Did you meet a fanboy, or something?”
Kyungsoo’s mind flits back to the hallway, and how he had jumped a little at the soft voice so close to his ear. He hadn’t registered the words at first, more focused on the boy whispering them. He turned to look just as someone called the boy away, and had only seen his back as he scurried down the hall.
He couldn’t help smiling, watching the boy hurry away around the corner, and found it a little hard to focus on what the staffs were saying once he turned back to their conversation. The whisper kept replaying in Kyungsoo’s head even afterwards, even standing with the rest of Solar during the ending stage - you’re so handsome brushed over his ear; a boy giving him three words he had heard so many times from fans, from girls, but somehow making them different.
He keeps them in the back of his mind along with the image of the boy as he left and name that had called him away: Jongin.
“We didn’t really meet,” Kyungsoo explains, holding back a shiver at the memory. “It was sort of... in-passing.”
“Now I’m wondering, too,” Zitao says, peeking over the back of the couch beside Sehun. “It’d be cool if we had male fans as well, right?”
“I’m sure we can find something on the internet,” Sehun says. “Maybe like a fan forum, or something?”
“Not now, though,” Junmyeon cuts in, standing up. “It’s bedtime. There’s a fansign tomorrow, remember? We all have to get up early.”
“We always get up early,” Zitao huffs.
“Yet you always want to stay up later,” Minseok laughs, pulling him up from the couch.
Kyungsoo heaves himself to his feet and retires to his and Minseok’s shared room after quickly saying goodnight to the other members. As hard as it is to put his curiosities on hold, he knows that the voice in his memory isn’t a priority - at least, not until Solar has some down time, without day-long schedules like fansigns in cities on the other side of the country.
Still, even after the early wake-up call and long drive the next morning, Kyungsoo feels his mood lift as soon as the members enter the venue. It’s been a little more than a year since Solar’s debut, but he’s amazed every time at the amount of fans that show up to see them. Some are holding signs for Lay even though he’s not attending, and Kyungsoo makes a mental note to text Yixing about it when they get back to the dorm.
He smiles brightly at each fan before he signs their album, practiced fingers easily flipping to his page in the album jacket. There are a few boys that come up as well, and Kyungsoo tries to look as friendly as possible. Not many of them speak up much beyond quiet hellos and thank yous, or sometimes giving their names if they don’t claim to be getting a sign for a sister or a friend, but none of them tell him Jongin, and in the noisy hall Kyungsoo can’t tell if any of their voices match the one in his mind.
He wants to tell himself that he’d recognize the boy by his voice alone, if he heard him speak again, but by the end of the fansign Kyungsoo has seen so many people and heard so many voices that he has to admit the voice in his memory might be nothing like what it was in real life.
As the members pile into the car to go back to the dorm, Junmyeon touches his arm. “Alright?”
Kyungsoo nods as he clips in his seat belt. “Just tired.”
“Did you see how many fanboys came up, hyung?” Sehun asks, giving an excited sort of wiggle. “You were right after all.”
Minseok twists around in his seat to look at them. “Were any of them the fan that you met before?”
“I don’t think so,” Kyungsoo sighs.
Junmyeon frowns. “Well, we can still search online, if you want. We can probably find a forum, or even something on twitter, maybe.” He leans forward to tap their manager in the passenger seat. “Hyung, can we borrow your phone?”
“Uh, it’s okay,” Kyungsoo says quickly, but Junmyeon leans back with the phone already in his hands, shaking his head.
“Nope, you’ve got me curious now.” The members all go quiet as Junmyeon types something in and taps the screen a few times, watching him conduct the search intently.
After a few minutes, his face lights up. “Here’s something,” he says, shifting closer to show them the screen. “It’s like a confession blog, I think… Oh, there’s one about you, Minseok-hyung.”
Minseok twists around again, looking bewildered. “What’s it say?”
“Username ‘Deer Xiu’ thinks you’re very good-looking,” Junmyeon tells him, reading through the post. “He says he wishes for Solar to have schedules in China so he can see you up close. And he’s stressed out because of how cute your face is. And he thinks your cheeks are--”
He cuts off when Minseok snatches the phone away, and turns away from them to read the rest of the post himself.
“Your face is getting red, hyung,” Sehun laughs, reaching for the phone. Minseok glares and holds it up out of his reach, but Kyungsoo plucks it right out of his hand.
“‘Don’t diet too much baozi’,” he reads, squinting at the screen. “‘When Solar comes here, ge will treat you to coffee, okay’.”
The other members snicker, but Minseok rolls his eyes and ignores their cooing, turning away to look out the window. His face is definitely a little pink.
Looking back at the phone screen, Kyungsoo scrolls down the page, eyes widening. “Wow, there’s… a lot.”
“Find one about me,” Zitao says, shifting close to peer at the screen. Kyungsoo hums, scrolling a little further and stopping on a post titled ‘Tao chic!!!!’
“He says you’re very cool,” Kyungsoo tells Zitao. “He likes your style and he’s started taking advice from your clothes at the airport recently.”
Zitao grins, squeezing Kyungsoo’s arm. “Another one, hyung.”
“There’s one about how impressive your rap is,” Kyungsoo reads, scrolling again. “Most of them are saying they think you’re cool and handsome.”
“I guess they’ve never seen you around bugs,” Sehun sniffs. Zitao sticks his tongue out at him.
“Are there any about you, Kyungsoo?” Junmyeon asks, but Sehun taps the screen before he can answer.
“There’s one,” he says, leaning over to read the title. “‘Subject: cute D.O’.
Kyungsoo blushes and tries to hand the phone back to their manager, but Minseok intercepts. He skims the post before smiling sweetly and clearing his throat. “‘D.O is so cool on stage’,” he reads out animatedly, “‘but in every behind-the-scenes photo he’s smiling so cutely, it hurts my heart’. Crying face. ‘It’s like two different people. I want to show people his charisma, but at the same time, he’s so squishy’.”
“Squishy?” Sehun repeats, but Kyungsoo jabs him in the ribs before he can laugh about it.
They pass the phone back and forth until they arrive back at the dorm, but by then it’s gotten late and Junmyeon insists everyone get ready for sleep. Kyungsoo is the last to shower, letting the yawning maknaes take their turn first, and as he brushes his teeth his mind wanders back to the fanboy posts - in particular, the first one they had read. While most of them were more flattering than anything, none had made any of them blush like Minseok had at Deer Xiu’s words.
He’s still thinking about it when he enters the dark bedroom, and nearly jumps as Minseok rolls over in bed to face him. “Hyung, you’re still up?”
Minseok hums and turns his head up towards the ceiling. “Just thinking.”
Kyungsoo almost asks what about, but he has a feeling he already knows. He climbs into bed and mirrors Minseok, looking up at the ceiling and the faint light from outside the window reflected there. They’re silent for a while, lying in the dark with their eyes still open, until Kyungsoo speaks up again. “Would you?”
Minseok sighs a little, like he was expecting the question. “Would I what?”
“Go for coffee with that fan.”
Minseok goes quiet for a moment, the silence filled by the noise of the street far below the open window. Finally Kyungsoo hears him take a breath- but he stops, sighs again instead. “I couldn’t.”
Kyungsoo turns to look at him. “Why not?”
“You know why,” Minseok says, turning his head the other way, towards the wall. He sounds tired, suddenly. “We’re in here, and he’s… out there.”
What if things we’re different? Kyungsoo wants to ask, but he hesitates too long, and Minseok rolls over, his whole body facing away, and the conversation is over.
Kyungsoo does his best to follow his example, closing his eyes and waiting for sleep. Their quiet breathing almost sounds like patterned whispering after a while, and he can’t help thinking of the voice again, just behind him but still too far away. This time, though, Kyungsoo lets his mind run off with it, taking the soft you’re so handsome and imagining all the other things that boy - whoever he was - could whisper to him in the dark.
It feels a little weird, almost selfish, but Kyungsoo pushes those thoughts away, squeezing his eyes shut. If he focuses enough, he can almost feel the words brushing across the back of his neck.
--
As he contemplates his bedroom ceiling, Jongin wonders for the nth time just how hard one has to wish in order for the ground to open up and swallow them.
It’s been a few days since seeing D.O at the broadcast station, which he’s taken to calling The Incident in his mind, but in that time he hasn’t been able to bring himself to do much other than mope around in his room. Not that it’s really a conscious decision, moping around - more like he keeps ignoring invitations to go out, and then it just happens.
He isn’t entertained by his usual pastimes anymore, like surfing the internet for Solar blogs and D.O fancams. Looking at D.O through a screen just reminds him of that time that he looked at him in real life, and then he remembers he’s trying not to think about The Incident and tries to distract himself, and the cycle starts over.
Jongin almost wishes he could forget it ever happened so he could go back to feeling normal about D.O. He still draws Jongin’s eye in every performance, and Jongin still feels his face getting a little warm when he looks at photos of him, but it had always been like that, since he saw their first stage at Dream Concert last year and D.O’s adlib over the last chorus made his jaw drop. There’s always been something about D.O that drew him in - maybe the cool expression in his teaser headshots, or his smooth voice that first caught Jongin’s attention, or maybe everything else, from his carefully styled hair to his heart-shaped lips all the way down to his pale knees peeking out from the rips in his jeans in the Eden music video. Whatever it was, it led Jongin to save D.O_solo_riff.mp3 as his morning alarm and keep an entire folder of photos stored on his phone. From the get-go, Jongin knew he was in deep.
But seeing D.O in person, even for just those few seconds, made him seem… like a real person. Not that Jongin didn’t think he was real before, but it’s different now.
He used to imagine somehow meeting D.O, like seeing the Solar members on the street and sharing some moment with him before going separate ways and living the rest of his life with the peace that comes with having a satisfying interaction with your favourite idol. But now it’s other things - meeting D.O alone, somewhere with no one else around, being close enough to touch--
It’s embarrassing, like the memory of The Incident is embarrassing, and what he said out loud to D.O is embarrassing. And so, he stays in his room, lamenting it.
But, nothing lasts forever, and Jongin sits up when his bedroom door is suddenly thrown open.
“Your mom said you were in here,” Chanyeol says from the doorway, giving a little wave. “‘Sup.”
Jongin flops back down on his bed with a sigh. “We have phones for a reason, hyung.”
“I know,” Chanyeol huffs, “but last time I called you to hang out, you said you didn’t want to.”
“That’s because I didn’t want to,” Jongin tells him. “And I still don’t.”
Chanyeol groans, stepping forward to jump onto the bed and lie down on top of Jongin’s feet. Jongin tries to wriggle them out from beneath him, but Chanyeol doesn’t budge. “Come on, Jongin, please?”
“I’m not in the mood, hyung,” Jongin says, trying to sound stern. Chanyeol falls silent for a few seconds, then sits up to look down at him with a worried expression.
“Is this about that time you and Baekhyun went to--”
“No,” Jongin says quickly, then turns over to squint at Chanyeol. “Why, did Baekhyun say something?”
“He said you were acting weird when you guys left,” Chanyeol says hesitantly. “Did something happen?”
“Nope,” Jongin sighs, rolling back over. “Nothing at all.”
He can feel Chanyeol’s gaze on the back of his head, knowing that he can probably see right through the lie, but Jongin has never in his life wanted to discuss something less. Luckily, Chanyeol lets it go.
“Well, if there’s no real reason you don’t want to hang out,” he says slowly, then lunges forward to cling onto Jongin’s arm. “Will you please come out tonight? Please, Jongin? Pretty please?”
Jongin shoves him off and sits up with a groan. “Why, what’s happening tonight?”
“Jongdae’s birthday,” Chanyeol explains, rocking a little in excitement. “He found this club he wants to go to, with dancing and booze and stuff.”
“I’m underage,” Jongin says flatly, but Chanyeol holds up a hand.
“You know Jongdae, he always knows a guy who knows a guy. He told me he can get you in.” His grin abruptly turns into a pout, and he looks down at Jongin’s blankets. “He really wants you to come. I really want you to come. Please, Jongin?”
Jongin sighs and leans back against his pillows, arms crossed. “I don’t know, I don’t really feel like--”
“It’ll be fun once you get there, I promise,” Chanyeol urges. “We can help you get whatever’s on your mind off your mind.”
Maybe Chanyeol is right, Jongin considers, maybe getting out of his room and going out with friends will help him stop thinking about what happened backstage. Or maybe it’s just the puppydog eyes Chanyeol is giving him that are swaying his judgement.
“Ugh.” Jongin scrubs his hands over his face and looks back at the ceiling. “Fine, I’ll come.”
Chanyeol wraps all four of his limbs around Jongin and nuzzles against him, grinning so wide Jongin is a little worried for his face muscles. “It’s gonna be awesome, I swear,” he says when he lets go, and he sounds so sure that Jongin can’t help giving him a small smile in return.
When Chanyeol leaves, relaying carpool plans as he hops off the bed and skips out of the room, Jongin lies back down and reaches under his pillows for his phone. He holds it up over his face, lets out a long breath, and taps the lock button.
The photo he has set on his lockscreen is of D.O on stage, smiling as he raises one hand to wave at the crowd. It’s from a few weeks ago, a fantaken photo from Solar’s showcase for Eden. Jongin had cropped it to fit the screen, but even through the blurry and confetti-speckled background, an LED-lit sign is visible, proclaiming ‘I ♡ D.O’.
Jongin can’t remember how many times he had looked at the photo and wished to be in the crowd. Even now he still feels a bit of longing, but it’s coupled with the weird feeling of embarrassment, like everything else. He considers changing the photo to something different, even looks through his camera roll for something to switch it with.
In the end he leaves it unchanged, and shoves his phone back under his pillows before dragging himself off the bed to change into clothes he can leave the house in.
By the time he steps out of Chanyeol’s car in the club’s parking lot, Jongin feels a little better, and the bass beat he can hear thrumming out of the building only encourages him. Jongdae meets them at the front doors with a few others, and together they cross the threshold into a mass of light and sound and moving bodies. The music is loud enough that Jongin can hardly hear himself think, and he welcomes it.
He lets himself get dragged to the dance floor by Chanyeol, and stays even when he and the rest of their group leave to crowd around the bar. He tips his head back and welcomes the music to fill it, blocking out everything else as he moves to the heavy beat, joining the rhythm of everyone around him. The beat changes, though, into something a little slower but distantly familiar, and Jongin’s head suddenly snaps up as D.O’s voice blares out of the speakers and an Eden remix begins to play.
He stops moving, expecting every thought he’s been trying to keep at bay to come rushing to the forefront of his mind, but instead all he can picture is the dancefloor, this time not alone, but with D.O. They dance with their eyes locked, Jongin’s sometimes flickering down to follow every twist of D.O’s body. The others around them push them closer until they’re almost chest-to-chest, moving together, and Jongin can feel D.O’s eyes on him, his body heat through their clothing, his breath as he leans even closer--
Jongin stumbles away from the other dancers and makes a shaky beeline to the bar counter. He gets a skeptical look instead of asked for ID, but can’t make himself feel thankful just yet. The alcohol burns going down his throat, but he keeps drinking until his thoughts are too blurry to put together, and the bass feels loud enough to drown out the voice crooning through the speakers.
--
Of course, as Jongin learns the next morning when his phone goes off loudly right next to his head, it was a bad idea.
Through the painful throbbing haze in his head, he somehow manages to shut off the ringer and answer it before the sixth ring, and groans a little in greeting.
“Jongin,” Baekhyun sing-songs through the phone, “can you do me a favour today?”
Jongin squints at the watery-looking numbers on his clock and calculates he won’t be alive for another few hours, at least. “Too early,” he croaks.
“It’s almost eleven.”
“Early,” Jongin repeats.
He hears Baekhyun sigh on the other end. “I know you went to town last night, but I’m the only one working in the cafe today,” he whines. “Can you please come watch the shop while I take a lunch break? I’ll pay you back, promise.”
“Hyung,” Jongin says seriously, “I feel like I’m dying.”
“Oh please,” Baekhyun sniffs. “You’re young and strong and resilient. Show up in one hour, okay?”
And so Jongin finds himself behind the counter at Kamong cafe, a little asleep and more than a little hungover, glaring at Baekhyun as he skips out the doors. It is only forty-five minutes, he supposes, and on the bright side, Baekhyun let him flip the Open sign around so he won’t actually have to deal with any customers. On the not-so-bright side, the painkillers he took have yet to kick in, and Jongin’s headache twinges with every gurgle from the coffee machines.
He rests his elbows on the counter and lets his head hang. Maybe once the pounding in his temples dissipates a little, he’ll stand up straight and make himself a coffee. For the time being, he closes his eyes and resists the urge to count the seconds until Baekhyun returns.
The bell over the door jingles only a few minutes later, and for a moment Jongin dares hope that it’s Baekhyun, come to tell him he was kidding about the whole thing and that he can go back to sleep. He peeks up through his bangs at the doorway, but it’s three boys instead, pushing inside hurriedly and very clearly ignoring the Closed sign hanging there. Jongin very nearly groans out loud.
The boys seem to ignore him too, apparently not realizing their mistake, and two start heading over to a table. Jongin straightens up hastily, blinking a few times to stop the room from spinning as he comes around the counter to head them off. “I’m sorry,” he starts, making the third boy jump a little and turn to face him, “we’re closed right now, you can’t-- oh.”
It’s Suho, Solar’s leader, out of makeup and stage clothes but still standing in the middle of Kamong like it’s a normal place for him to be. Jongin immediately wonders if he had fallen asleep at the counter, and this is all just some weird dream brought on by his headache - but the said pain in his head still feels pretty real. He looks past Suho to the other two boys sitting down at the farthest table, recognizing them as the youngest member Sehun and a very pale D.O.
Thankfully, Suho doesn’t give Jongin much time to dwell on the last part. “I’m really sorry about this,” he says in a rush. “We just need a few minutes to call our manager, that’s it. We won’t stay long, we just need him to send a car--”
“It’s okay,” Jongin squeaks, more concerned with the fact that Suho is speaking to him at all. “You can take as long as you need to, really, I was just-- yeah.”
“Thank you,” Suho sighs in relief, giving him a dazzling, grateful smile. Jongin feels like he might faint.
Instead, he glances back over at D.O, taking in how pale he looks and the protective way Sehun is curled around his arm. “Is he alright?” he asks before he can stop himself.
“He’s a bit shaken up,” Suho answers, following his gaze. “We had some free time today, so we were just walking around here for something to do, but there was a - a group of fans, following us. Nothing happened,” he adds quickly, when Jongin frowns. “They just… got a little too close.”
He excuses himself to make the phone call, leaving Jongin to continue watching D.O’s almost uncomfortably blank face until he remembers his manners and slips back behind the counter to make them each a warm drink. Eventually Sehun unwinds from D.O and wanders over, and Suho joins him a few minutes later, reporting that their ride is on its way. They both look tired up close, Jongin notes, but they still accept their teas with smiles and polite thank-yous, and it makes his cheeks feel a little warm.
As he takes the last steaming cup over to D.O, Jongin tries to act calm and collected. He refuses to let his mind stray anywhere near The Incident, or whatever it came up with at the club that he hasn’t thought of a name for yet - he pushes all of it away to focus on the here and now: D.O sitting in front of him, curled in a little, looking smaller than usual and just a bit freaked out.
Without makeup his eyes look wider, somehow, especially when he glances up at Jongin, and his unstyled hair flops across his forehead in a soft-looking way. Jongin is a little amazed at the difference between the D.O he’s watched on stage so many times and the person he’s seeing right now, without any screen between them.
He places the cup carefully on the table, and D.O smiles faintly at it before he drops his gaze to his lap. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
Jongin isn’t really sure what he imagined D.O’s first words to him to be, but it definitely wasn’t that. He blinks a few times. “For what?”
“For making you deal with us.” Keeping his eyes downcast, D.O folds his hands together on the tabletop. “I tried to tell them you were closed, but--”
“I don’t mind,” Jongin interrupts. “I don’t think anyone would. I mean, you guys are--”
“Idols, yeah,” D.O sighs, looking up at him again, “but we’re still just… people. You can kick us out if you want to.”
“I don’t want to,” Jongin says quickly. “To be honest, I only had the closed sign up because I had a headache. But it’s gone now,” he adds when D.O narrows his eyes at him.
“...Are you sure?”
“Yeah, it disappeared as soon as you walked in.” A half-truth - Jongin can still feel the edges of it pulsing in his skull, but if he focuses on D.O instead, then he can almost forget that it’s there. “You did me a favour, really.”
D.O laughs at that, quietly, and finally curls his hands around the cup on the table. Satisfied, Jongin smiles back at him. At least that blank look is off his face.
It doesn’t take long for Solar’s manager to show up, screeching to a halt in front of Kamong and all but vaulting himself through the door. He rushes Sehun and Suho out first, the latter pausing to give Jongin another grateful smile before he’s hurried out into the car, then comes back to hover worriedly by the table as D.O stands up slowly.
“I’m alright,” D.O says, brushing off the hand his manager offers to him, and looks back at Jongin with a smile. “Thank you, uh--”
It takes Jongin a moment to realize that he’s fumbling for a name. He worries for another half-second about his response time being too fast, but ultimately decides not to worry about it. D.O is smiling at him and he feels like he’s going to melt, nothing can bring him down. “I’m Jongin.”
As soon as he says it, D.O’s expression changes, his eyes widening, and the longer he goes without responding, the more anxious Jongin gets. Perhaps in his excitement he mispronounced his own name?
“D.O,” the manager calls impatiently from the doorway, and D.O blinks, coming back to himself.
“Jongin,” D.O repeats, and Jongin nods slowly. “Jongin, I... sorry.” He shakes his head a little as he backs up towards the door. “I have to go, but-- thank you, Jongin. For the tea.”
Then the manager is ushering him out the door, and within a few seconds the car pulls away. Eventually the cafe is calm again, the sign on the door still flipped to Closed, and Jongin is left with the quiet - and, a little louder, the memory of D.O saying his name, repeating it. Taking it with him.
Jong blushes so hard he feels like his whole body must be flushed with it, and escapes to the back room to splash cold water on his face. He’s tempted to stay there until Baekhyun returns, maybe stick his whole head under the tap for good measure, but he manages to drag himself back to the counter and slump over it again.
At least his head isn’t pounding anymore - now it’s his heart, beating just a little quicker whenever he thinks of D.O’s mouth forming his name.
--
Kyungsoo doesn’t especially like the company building on the best of days, let alone on days when the members are herded into a car so early that even Junmyeon is only vaguely awake - but with Yixing still in China, there isn’t much for Solar to do. Not that there’s anything to be done at the company building, but none of the executives want a repeat of the emergency pick up at Kamong the day before, and so Kyungsoo lets himself be led through the halls to an empty conference room, and collapses into the first chair he sees.
They get the room to themselves, five water bottles already waiting for them on the centre table, as well as a short stack of papers their manager tells them to look over - but after he leaves, Junmyeon takes those and sits at one end of the long table to read them himself. The other members sit with Kyungsoo at the opposite end, slumping into their chairs and trying their best to keep their eyes open. No matter how much space they’re given, the fact remains that the company building is boring.
“Why couldn’t they just let us stay at the dorm instead of waking us up early to come here?” Sehun whines, breaking the tired silence. He pulls his feet up onto his chair and spins it around in slow circles. “We could’ve caught up on sleep.”
“Sleep here,” Zitao mumbles from where he’s half-sprawled on the table, head pillowed on his arms.
“In a bed, I mean,” Sehun huffs, then turns to Minseok sitting across from him. “Hyung, can you ask manager-hyung to drive us back? Please?”
Minseok lets out a long breath, rolling his water bottle back and forth on the tabletop. “Just wait a bit. Let Junmyeon finish what he’s reading first.”
Sehun goes back to spinning, heaving a dramatic sigh that Kyungsoo can’t help but agree with. He’s grateful for the pseudo day off, but he also can’t stop thinking about the boy from the cafe, about Jongin, about Jongin whispering to him as he brushed past--
“You’ll make yourself sick,” Junmyeon warns from across the room, not looking up from what he’s reading. Sehun stops spinning and flips forward on the table instead, mimicking Zitao’s pose. Zitao shifts over a little, bumping their elbows together.
“You guys are making me tired,” Minseok says, rubbing his eyes.
“I can do a coffee run,” Kyungsoo says suddenly, the idea slowly forming in his head as he stands up from his chair.
Junmyeon does look up then, his brow furrowed. “Are you sure? We could ask the staff instead.”
“Being outside will wake me up,” Kyungsoo tells him, already slipping his jacket on, “and it’s early enough that I don’t think too many fans would be around.”
Junmyeon still looks uneasy, but Kyungsoo is already opening the door, not giving them time to think too hard about his idea and stop him. “Just… be quick, okay?” he calls as Kyungsoo steps out.
“Don’t get caught,” Sehun adds, muffled by the table.
He doesn’t. A few hallways and double-doors later, Kyungsoo is speed-walking the few blocks it is to Kamong, pretending not to see every other cafe and coffee shop he passes along the way. It feels like a long time before the building finally comes into view, yet at the same time not nearly enough time to prepare for actually going inside. He slows down by the front windows, staring intently at the Open sign for a moment to brace himself, then finally steps inside.
Warm coffee-scented air greets him, and Kyungsoo relaxes a little. There are a few customers sitting quietly around the edges of the cafe, but none of them give him more than a cursory glance. He takes a deep breath before looking over to the front counter - but Jongin isn’t there. There’s a shorter boy instead, raising his eyebrows at him, and Kyungsoo hurries over before anyone starts staring.
“Is there a manager around?” he asks quietly before the boy can greet him.
The boy smiles a little, pointing to his nametag. Kyungsoo squints at it, and notices the tiny star sticker pasted in the A of ‘BAEKHYUN’. “I’m basically as good as one,” Baekhyun says smugly. “Can I help you with something?”
Kyungsoo swallows nervously. “There was-- yesterday, a boy working here, Jongin--”
“Jongin doesn’t work here,” Baekhyun laughs. “Did he tell you that? He was just watching the shop for me.” Kyungsoo’s face falls, but Baekhyun smirks as he gives him a once-over. “I can give you his number, if you want.”
“Th-that’s okay,” Kyungsoo says quickly, feeling a blush spread over his cheeks, “I just want to talk to him, it’s fine--”
“Okay,” Baekhyun sing-songs, and pulls his phone out of his apron pocket. “Let me call him for you.”
Kyungsoo splutters, but Baekhyun is already holding the phone to his ear. He knows he has only a few seconds to think of something to say to Jongin when he answers, and gets as far as ‘this is Solar’s D.O, please don’t scream’ when a burst of tinny music cuts off his thoughts.
It’s coming from within the shop, and Baekhyun crouches down for a moment to retrieve a cellphone from under the counter. “He must’ve left it here,” he sighs, putting it down on the countertop between them. “He was acting weird when he left yesterday, I guess he forgot it.”
Kyungsoo stares down at the device, a little shocked to hear his own voice singing out of it. “Oh, this song,” Baekhyun says, following his gaze. “It’s by his favourite band, I think. Do you know it?”
It’s the last chorus of Eden, Kyungsoo has sung it hundreds of times. “Sort of,” he says weakly.
“Anyway, I’m sorry about this,” Baekhyun sighs, tapping the screen to shut the ringtone off. “I could still give you his number if you want? You can call him later, after he comes to pick it--”
“Hyung,” someone calls, and Kyungsoo whirls around to see Jongin striding up to the counter as the front door falls closed behind him. “Is my phone here? I think I left it yesterday.”
Kyungsoo can’t help staring as he gets closer. He looks more comfortable without a cafe apron on, but still about as tired as the day before, and he stops right next to Kyungsoo and snatches his phone up off the counter. “Did you do something to it?” he asks, eyes narrowed at Baekhyun, who holds his hands up innocently.
“I did nothing except offer to give a stranger your digits,” he says, gesturing at Kyungsoo, and Jongin finally turns to look at him. The suspicious expression immediately slides off his face, and Kyungsoo resists the urge to drop his gaze, instead staring right back at him. He’s handsome, up close, even with his eyes widened in surprise and his mouth hanging open a little bit.
Baekhyun looks back and forth between them, mouth curling into a smirk. “Unless he’s not a stranger…?”
Jongin starts an indignant reply but Baekhyun hushes him, grabbing each of their shoulders and dragging them along the counter to the back room. “I don’t really want to know,” he tells them, ushering them inside, “but I don’t need you causing a scene and holding up cafe traffic. Play nice!” he calls before shutting the door, and nearly all sound from the shop is cut off, leaving Kyungsoo with Jongin in the almost-silence.
It’s a little uncomfortable. Kyungsoo had rushed to the shop to speak to Jongin, but now that he’s here and they’re alone, he’s not sure how to look at Jongin, let alone how to begin.
Luckily, Jongin speaks first. “I’m sorry if I said something wrong, yesterday,” he mumbles, eyes on the floor. “When you were leaving, I mean. You just-- you looked like--”
“You didn’t say anything wrong,” Kyungsoo assures him, but Jongin keeps his mouth shut, still looking down. Kyungsoo hazards taking a step closer to him, and Jongin doesn’t move away.
“We’ve met before, right?” he asks, quieter.
“Yeah,” Jongin replies hesitantly. “Yesterday.”
“Before that, though.” Another step. “Haven’t we?”
He’s close enough to see the blush on Jongin’s cheeks. “You-- do you remember that?”
Kyungsoo nods and takes another step, now within touching distance, and Jongin still hasn’t moved. “You called me handsome,” he murmurs. Jongin squeaks, his whole face red. Kyungsoo can hardly believe that this boy who blushes so easily is the same one whose whispers made him shiver.
“It was nice,” Kyungsoo continues, keeping his voice low and watching Jongin’s reactions closely. “I thought about it for days, I couldn’t get your voice out of my head. But you know what that’s like.” Jongin raises his head then, giving Kyungsoo a confused look. “You’re my fan, right?”
“Y-yes,” Jongin says, in a small, breathless voice, and Kyungsoo takes another step forward, close enough that he can just lean up a little bit and--
“We shouldn’t,” Jongin whispers suddenly.
Kyungsoo pulls back, frowning. “Why not?”
“Because you’re you,” Jongin says, a little exasperated. “I mean, you’re… amazing, and talented and inspiring, and I’m - I’m not--”
Kyungsoo hushes him. “I’m not D.O right now, okay?” he tells him. “I’m just me. And you’re just you.”
Jongin seems to accept it for a moment, but when Kyungsoo tries to lean in again, he turns his face away. “But I know your blood type,” he says in a rush, “and your birthday and your hometown, and what year you auditioned and how long you trained, and - and I still don’t know you, not really.” He pauses for breath, turning back to look at Kyungsoo carefully. “And you don’t know any of those things about me, so how can you say--”
Kyungsoo touches his hand and he stops, still watching him.
“You’re right,” Kyungsoo says quietly, “I don’t know.” Gently, he winds his fingers around Jongin’s and presses their hands together. “But I want to.”
Jongin lets out a shaky breath and, after a moment, presses back. This time, when Kyungsoo leans in, Jongin lets him.
--
Jongin doesn’t realize until much later that they’re really doing this whole relationship thing backwards. On the other hand, he supposes, it was nice to get the first bit of kissing out of the way, since the get-to-know-me part is really, in the long run, more intimate. And with D.O’s constantly-busy schedule, it’s nice for Jongin to be able to spend the short times they have together touching him, instead of pretending he doesn’t want to.
It helps that kissing D.O is a million times better than Jongin ever imagined - not that he thought a lot about kissing D.O until very, very recently, but he still wouldn’t have been able to come up with anything close to the real feeling of D.O’s mouth moving against his.
Kyungsoo’s mouth, actually. It’s Kyungsoo now - it had been difficult at first to make the switch in his mind, but then it slipped out, once, when they broke apart for breath, and since then the thought of the needy, breathy noise Kyungsoo had made after that makes it easier to remember.
“Jongin, are you listening?”
Jongin blinks a few times, zoning back in. Kyungsoo, sitting across the table from him, coffee in hand and a pout on his lips. He has his jacket’s hood up, even though no one in Kamong ever seems to recognize him, and Baekhyun always makes sure the secluded corner table is theirs, anyway. Jongin smiles sheepishly and leans forward on his elbows. “Sorry, what were we talking about?”
“Vacation time,” Kyungsoo huffs. “The CEO promised. If we do well next comeback.”
“Eden did pretty well,” Jongin hums. “It got third on Inkigayo that one time.”
Kyungsoo sighs, looking down at his drink. “Yeah, but can we do that twice in a row?”
“Of course,” Jongin says, beaming as he leans back. He’s already promised to set D.O’s image teaser as his desktop background and Chanyeol’s, and maybe even Baekhyun’s, just so he won’t forget who Jongin’s favourite member is again.
His phone lock screen, though, he’ll leave as-is. Since he finally changed it to something other than Kyungsoo’s face, he can’t go back - and besides, photos of Kyungsoo’s smile can’t compare to how it looks in real life, without a screen over top.
Like right now, as Kyungsoo slowly smiles back at him. He grabs Jongin’s hand under the table and tugs on it, making him lean forward again to meet him halfway--
They’re interrupted by a phone ringing, and Jongin can tell from the boring phone-ring sound that it’s Kyungsoo’s before he even looks. They both gaze down at it where it sits on the table, lighting up and making noise, but they don’t move away from each other.
“Well,” Kyungsoo says, staring down at his phone but making no move to answer it. “That’s probably Junmyeon-hyung, telling me to come home.”
Jongin nods slowly, watching Kyungsoo’s face instead. “Are you gonna answer it?”
“I should,” Kyungsoo says, looking up at him again. He smiles.
They let the phone ring a few more times.