DAY 2: In the Running
Title: In the Running
Written by: hyperlydian
Pairing: Kris/Tao
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Drug use (off-camera), incredibly mild sexual humor, politics
Summary: Kris Wu is living his life-long dream of running for president, but Huang Zitao, his not-so-conventional running partner, could care less about getting to the White House.
A/N: As this is a crackfic, I've taken the liberty of fiddling with the members' ages and nationalities (obviously). For the purposes of this story, they are all American citizens, and it is safe to assume that everyone is in their late 30s (as a person has to be at least 35 to run for president), except for Jongin, who for some reason is still the right age to be a college intern. Hopefully, though, you won't think on it too much and simply sit back and enjoy the show!
"Huang Zitao? Wasn't he the one whose entire platform was the national legalization of pot?"
"Marijuana, Kris. You have to call it marijuana if you're running for president."
Kris waves Baekhyun, his campaign manager, off with a huge hand. "I met him a few years ago, didn't I?" He remembers seeing Zitao across the room at the DNC a few weeks ago, too, after somebody pointed him out. "Governor from Washington state?"
"Yes. Every election he's run in, he's won in a landslide."
"Are you sure this is a good idea? He doesn't seem very… very," Kris finishes lamely. Well. He has a speechwriter for a reason.
"Everyone agrees this will help unify party support for the election." Baekhyun turns his coffee cup around in his hand, an anxious habit Kris' seen on many occasions over the past year. "I know on the surface, he might seem a little…"
"Ridiculous?"
"Revolutionary," Baekhyun says pointedly, "but I think there's something there."
Kris is unconvinced. "He went to Stanford."
"And NYU before that. So?"
"Stanford's not a real ivy le-"
"Propaganda!" Junmyeon shouts from the other room. Kris ignores him because Junmyeon is a people-pleaser who will make an excellent press secretary one day.
"Just-meet him, at least." Baekhyun looks at him beseechingly. "Kris, please."
"Huang Zitao?"
Baekhyun nods and Kris shoves his hands into his pockets, sighing.
He remembers shaking Zitao's hand a few years ago at some stuffy, politician-filled Christmas party, but his face is fuzzy in Kris' mind. Kris hopes Zitao will cave in under five minutes so they can just forget this whole thing and find a real vice presidential candidate to have as his running partner. "Okay."
The meeting could have gone a little better, Kris thinks, but his part in that is neither here nor there.
Huang Zitao, who, for all his party infamy, Kris has only seen up close once, is a lot taller than Kris remembers. His pants also happen to be a lot tighter. "Nice leopard print," Kris says once they're sitting down at the restaurant, nodding at the pattern on the inside of the collar of Zitao's otherwise plain grey dress shirt and snorting.
"Nice sweater vest," Zitao shoots back, looking unimpressed.
Kris glances down at his cream sweater vest, frowning. "This is cashmere."
Zitao scoffs, taking a sip of his water, and Kris thinks his mouth might be too large for his face. Or something. Whatever it is, it's obscene. "You're not what I… remember."
"I bet not." Zitao eyes Kris' hands as they fiddle with his napkin. "You're exactly what I remember, though. Nice and jaded by the system."
"Excuse me?"
Zitao shakes his head, pushing his chair back. "This was a waste of time. Have a nice day, Mr. Wu."
Kris watches Zitao walk out of the restaurant, the light from the fixtures catching on his perfectly shined shoes, and hadn't he thought Huang Zitao was going to be a pushover?
"Hey!" Kris says to the empty chair across from him, thirty seconds too late. "I'm the one that's supposed to say that!"
"He insulted my sweater." Kris sits back in his chair and definitely does not pout.
"Don't pout. You're going to be forty next year." Baekhyun types something into his blackberry. "Also, if it was that white sweater vest, I think my grandfather owns the same one."
"It's cashmere!"
"I think it's nice," Junmyeon says, straightening his tie using his reflection in a picture on the other side of the room. It's a horrible plum color, with green paisley patterned across it, and Kris makes a mental note to rethink the sweater vest next time.
"Regardless, selecting your running partner has nothing to do with his opinions on your clothes. The party all agrees-"
"I don't agree," Kris mutters, and Baekhyun shoots him a glare. He sinks lower in his chair.
"-and I've scheduled a meeting with Oh Sehun this afternoon, so we'll talk about the details then."
"Who's that?"
"Zitao's campaign strategist. He's supposed to be one of the best. We even tried to get him back last year, but he wouldn't budge."
"Campaign strategist?" Kris likes the sound of that. "Finally someone with some sense."
"For this campaign, you and Kris," Sehun says searchingly, leaning against Kris' desk, "you need to be like… like an ice cream sandwich."
"What."
Sehun looks at them like they're all idiots. "Kris is the cookie. He's what people see, what makes it a sandwich." Sehun makes a motion that looks kind of like a clam opening and closing that makes Kris' eyebrows draw together. "And Zitao, you're the ice cream in the middle." Sehun squishes his palms together and Zitao looks torn between confused and offended. "You're behind the scenes, holding everything together."
Everyone pauses. Baekhyun opens his mouth curiously, before Kris cuts in, "What people see? Are you calling me a figurehead?" at the same time Zitao bursts out, "Why do I have to be the ice cream?"
Sehun throws up his hands as though he's washing them of the world and Baekhyun shuts his mouth, mashing his own hands into his face.
"Does that mean you think I'm cold?" Zitao asks Sehun.
Kris scoffs. "Probably."
"Right, because I'm the one who's cold." Zitao rounds on Kris, poking him in the chest with his finger. It kind of hurts. "You're the walking iceberg in a suit."
"The only reason you're here is your completely sensationalist platform," Kris yells back. "Without it, not even your idiotic supporters would be able to ignore the fact that you perpetually look like you want to punch a baby in the face!"
There are patches of pink on Zitao's cheekbones and he shouts, "I don't care what anyone says about the American public, they'll never elect an ice sculpture as president!"
There's a sudden silence, like the fallout after an explosion, and he and Zitao are standing far too close. The lapels of Kris' suit jacket somehow ended up crumpled in Zitao's hands as they screamed at each other, and when he notices, he drops the fabric as though it's on fire.
They step apart, and Zitao makes for the door.
"Don't go punching any babies," Kris sneers while straightening his jacket. Zitao flips an obscene gesture over his shoulder without pausing and the door slams behind him.
"He just gave me the finger! Baekhyun can you believe he-"
Kris turns around to see Baekhyun slowly shoving his own tie into his mouth and Sehun is looking at Kris as though there's something very wrong with his face.
"Have I got something in my teeth?" he asks.
Sehun's eyes are heavily lidded, as always, but Kris feels as though his vacant stare is more judgmental than usual. "Just a bit of idiocy, right next to your right incisor," he drawls out, so matter-of-fact that Kris almost believes him. He drops the hand from his mouth a fraction of a second too late and Sehun smirks, before turning to Baekhyun and jerking his head towards the door. "We should…"
Baekhyun spits out his tie, pushing himself up off the couch. "Yeah." He looks at Kris. "And you should go apologize."
"Me?" Despite their height difference, Baekhyun looks kind of intimidating with little bits of drool smudged at the corners of his mouth.
"Yes."
"But I didn't-"
"Apologize."
"Fine."
Sehun seems less irritated when he and Baekhyun reach the door and he turns back to Kris. "It's way worse for Zitao, you know. I bet you don't even care about ice," Sehun explains simply, "but Zitao loves babies."
Kris finds Zitao out back of the office building, sitting on one of the benches in the smoking area. He almost scoffs, because he probably should have looked there first, considering, but there's no cigarette in Zitao's hands, only a cell phone. Kris blinks, watching Zitao's fingers tap rapidly at the keyboard, before walking over.
Zitao doesn't look up, even when Kris casts a shadow over him. Kris just stares at him for a minute. "You're not smoking."
"Of course not. Cigarettes are disgusting."
"But you're…What about the pot thing?"
Zitao still doesn't look up. "Don't be stupid."
Taking a deep breath, Kris pushes past being offended and says, "I'm sorry. For when I said you looked like you wanted to punch a baby, I mean."
This time, Zitao glances at him. His hair is falling across his forehead and it's almost like Zitao is looking up at him through his eyelashes.
Kris clears his throat. "Okay?"
"Sure," Zitao says, and goes back to his phone.
Kris waits a beat. "This is the part where you're supposed to say you're sorry for calling me an ice sculpture. That's how this works."
"What?"
"You called me an iceberg in a suit."
"Oh, right. I'm sorry."
Zitao doesn't sound sorry at all and Kris grits his teeth before bursting out, "What's your problem?"
"My problem?" Zitao sighs, sitting back against the bench with the hand holding his phone dangling by his side.
"You have a chance at the White House. A once-in-a-lifetime chance. Don't you care?"
"Why should I?" Kris sputters a little, thinking of how he'd watched the State of the Union at age six with wide eyes fixed on the president's face and what his mother's laughter had sounded like when he turned to her and asked how do I get his job?. He can hardly remember a time when he didn't want to run for president. Zitao doesn't seem to notice Kris' trip down memory lane, and continues, "Politics like this is just a sham. It's not about providing people with the freedom of choice or democracy. It's about power, and I'm not interested in that."
"Everyone's interested in power. It's part of what makes us human," Kris reasons, but the words sound stale even to his own ears.
Zitao's eyes go hard. "If it's being used to control people rather than help them, I'm not."
"I don't want to control people!" Kris says, a strange sick feeling beginning to roll around in his stomach. "I'm not like-"
"As far as I'm concerned, you're just like the rest of them."
Kris's mouth drops open to defend himself again, but no words come, and he's stuck watching as Zitao stands, pocketing his phone and walking back inside the office building.
Back in college, Kris had been seen as a little weird. Not in a repulsive way, but his friends definitely would have described him as a little quirky. He'd worked hard to get where he was, the son of a single mom clinging to big dreams as he climbed his way, with the help of scholarships, to two schools at the top of the education food chain.
Luckily, Kris was charismatic and imposing enough that no one ever gave him any trouble, but he was still known around campus as "that weird politics major that'll talk your ear off about the power of democracy", and his friends knew that he could usually be found with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, shuffling through reference books and taking notes in his cramped handwriting as he muttered earnestly about the Bill of Rights.
After his conversation with Zitao, though, Kris wonders what's changed since then. He thinks back to the first time he'd been elected to congress, the thrill of victory that had gone flying through him, and wonders when it became about winning instead of helping people.
Unfortunately, this realization comes to him when he's in the middle of a meeting with Baekhyun and Sehun about travel schedules.
"What if we win the election, what then?" he says, having been ranting for the past ten minutes, and Sehun and Baekhyun are looking at him like he's an impending train wreck they can't stop watching. "I'll end up in the White House and the whole country will be one heart attack away from having someone who wears leopard print and drinks herbal tea as president!"
"That's a bit dramatic," Baekhyun says. "You're not even forty."
Sehun shrugs. "Considering our nation's history, that's hardly the worst thing that could happen."
"And you." Kris turns to Sehun. "You're supposed to be a genius, but you're not. All you do is talk about ice cream sandwiches and babies and sometimes you're so impassive that I think you're face is actually a mask!"
"Well that's quite rude," Sehun sniffs.
"Ignore him. I think he's having a panic attack." Baekhyun sighs and turns his attention back to Kris, who is busy tugging at the collar of his dress shirt because he feels like he's about to suffocate. "Are you saying you don't want Zitao as your running partner?"
"No! I-I just don't know how to talk to him!"
Sehun shrugs again. "Zitao's actually not that complicated. Just tell him the truth. He can figure things out from there."
"The truth," Kris repeats to himself. "What didn't I think of that?"
"Because you're a politician," Sehun says unhelpfully, and Baekhyun snorts. Kris ignores both of them.
Zitao's been ignoring him for two days-though, Kris thinks, that's not much different from how he'd been acting before, except now Zitao doesn't even bother glaring in his direction during their joint meetings and Kris is left feeling irritated and pitifully sorry for himself while Baekhyun rolls his eyes.
By the third day, he's had enough time to think about what Zitao said and decides to swallow his pride and try to apologize.
"So," Kris says. "I, um, thought about what you said. The other day." Zitao waits for him to go on, and so he does. "About how politics like this isn't right. Back in college, I was… People called me weird, because I cared, you know? I really cared about speaking for other people and making a difference, and I think we could make a difference if we did this. The election, I mean. Together. Because I still do care." Kris feels himself flush, something he hasn't allowed himself to do for years and the collar of his button-up is suddenly too tight as his stomach squirms under Zitao's stare.
"I'd say you were lying," Zitao says thoughtfully, "but I think if you really were, it would have come out better than that."
Kris scowls.
"That was a really terrible speech." Zitao stands, making his way around the desk to stand in front of Kris. Kris feels like he should be offended, except that there's a reason he has a speechwriter, and he's too busy being glad Zitao is tall because that means they can look each other in the eye without having to try.
"Is that a no?" Kris asks.
Zitao shakes his head. "It was an awful speech, but it had something." He holds out his hand for Kris to shake. "I'll do it."
"Really?" Kris hadn't actually expected this to work.
"Just shut up and shake my hand."
The first day they combine their offices, Kris spends the whole morning trying to ignore Sehun staring at him. He finally snaps around eleven o'clock after a meeting with Jongdae about poster designs had devolved into chaos when he met Zitao's ground campaign manager Lu Han, who ended up being an old friend of Jongdae's from college. Kris walks away when the conversation turned into a bizarre pissing contest about action figure collections and finds Sehun still looking at him.
"What?!" Kris says, much too loudly, but Sehun doesn't even flinch, cheek resting on his palm as he stares. "What are you staring at?"
"Well," Sehun says slowly, "if I squint and turn my head like this," he tilts his head at an angle that makes it look like it's detached from his neck, "your face kind of looks like Jupiter."
Zitao's intern, Jongin, who has the sleepiest eyes Kris has ever seen, lets out a peal of laughter and Sehun blinks at the sound, as though waking up from a dream.
Kris watches, morbidly curious, as Sehun looks back down at the flowchart that's been sitting in front of him for the past four hours and begins working on it as though nothing's happened.
Zitao laughs quietly when he passes by.
"Is he…?" Kris tries to ask, not knowing how to phrase the question when they're supposed to be at work.
Zitao shrugs, not seeming to care. "That's the mystery of Oh Sehun. I'm surprised you don't know each other actually. He was at Princeton right around when you were."
"Really?" Sehun has to be younger than him by at least a few years, and Kris is incredulous.
"We went to high school together for a year, but then he went off to college really early." Zitao sends Kris a look out of the corner of his eye. "I guess you wouldn't have run in the same circle of friends."
Kris knows Zitao must be thinking of when he'd said people called him weird back in college and scowls. "You're right. I didn't hang out with potheads-"
"Anyway," Zitao cuts in breezily, "you shouldn't sell him short. He's kind of a genius."
Kris looks back of at Sehun, who's already finished the flow chart and seems to be talking on his cell phone to Al Gore, all vacantness erased from his face, and decides it's probably best not to underestimate anything having to do with Huang Zitao.
Baekhyun walks through Kris' front door without even asking when it opens.
"Kris, I have had the Best Party Idea Ever." He elbows his way into Kris' living room, and Kris can practically hear the capitals. "See, it's a timewarp party, and you wear all your clothes in layers, and the music would start with like, the 20's, right? And you'd be wearing your 20's outfit on top. And then the music changes, and you take those clothes off for the next era. It would be like time travel! I don't know what would happen after you ran out of clothes, though. Does that mean we'll be naked in the future? Weird."
Kris watches as Baekhyun slides around on the couch, trying to find a comfortable position, but his legs don't seem to be cooperating. He tugs at his own shoe and lets out a giggle.
Kris stares. "Oh my god, are you high."
"What, no," Baekhyun answers too quickly.
"You were hanging out with Sehun, weren't you?"
Baekhyun lets his head loll on the arm of the couch as he shakes it back and forth, eyes rolling. "…Nooooo."
"Baekhyun."
"We were just bonding! Two campaign managers, hangin' out, preparing for when dos become uno." Baekhyun reaches up, rubbing his hair between his fingertips. "Hair is so weird, wow."
"Dos become uno? What does that even mean?" Kris took a few semesters of Spanish in high school, so he knows that it means, but not really what it means.
Baekhyun doesn't seem to notice, too busy with his hair. "Jongin asked if you and Zitao were boinking yet because you have crazy sexual tension, so I told him I didn't think you were because you're emotionally stunted and casual sex gives you panic attacks but he said-"
"Okay," Kris interrupts, grabbing Baekhyun's arm out of the air and pulling him up. "Time for bed."
"Really?" Baekhyun sounds suspicious and Kris sighs, tucking Baekhyun under his arm so he can't run off.
"Yes. You can even sleep in my bed."
Baekhyun doesn't protest much after that, snuggling into the middle of the king-sized bed that could have fit at least ten more of him, and Kris slumps awkwardly onto the couch, feet hanging off the end. Baekhyun will sleep it off and Kris hopes he won't remember much of this in the morning, but the seed has been planted. He dozes off thinking about the distinctive bow of Zitao's lips, neck already aching from the arm of the sofa, but he almost doesn't mind.
It's not a crush, exactly. It's just that Kris maybe thinks Zitao is kind of attractive and his ideas about freedom of choice make his heart, the part that loved democracy and civic duty, flutter excitedly.
"D'you-Do you want to go get some lunch?"
Zitao looks up from the papers in front of him, confused. "What?"
"It's noon," Kris tries again. "I was asking if you wanted to get something to eat?"
"I'm on European time. I don't eat lunch 'til two."
"Oh, were you there recently? Jet-lag?"
Zitao is staring at Kris like he's a complete idiot and Kris fidgets, something he hasn't done since before he first ran for public office. "I've never been to Europe."
"Of course not," Kris mutters as Sehun grabs Zitao's attention to talk to him about a TV appearance, and then sighs dramatically. "I guess I'll be eating by myself then."
Kris looks around for someone to take pity on him, but no one else seems to care.
They're stuck late at the office preparing for the upcoming debate (which is still a whole month away, but Sehun had muttered something about Pavlovian training, and Kris had thought it better not to ask) when he decides to try again.
"I'm getting a cup of coffee. Anyone else want something?" Kris asks, standing and stretching. He glances over at Zitao, watching the way his hair falls over his eyes and ignores the feeling in his stomach. He's much to old to get butterflies. "Zitao? Tea?"
"Hey!" Jongin says, looking offended and sitting bolt upright in the chair he'd been lazing in. "I'm his intern. That's my job."
"But-"
Jongin is already up and heading into the other room where they keep the coffee and hot water heater.
"Aren't you supposed to be creating jobs for the American people?" Jongin says on his way back in the room, steaming mug of tea in hand. "What would your supporters say if they knew you were trying to take my job and aid the country's skyrocketing unemployment rates, huh?"
He looks around at Kris accusingly and Kris catches Zitao's eye over Jongin's shoulder. Zitao is smiling at him, lower lip pulled into his mouth as he laughs while Kris tries to figure out what to say.
After a few seconds, he decides it's not worth the effort. "Could you make me some coffee, then?"
Jongin scoffs, settling back into his chair. "Are you trying to give me more work or something? I'm not your intern."
Kris stands for a few moments before going back to his seat and slumping back into it, fiddling with some papers as he tries to figure out where he went so wrong with his life.
"Here." A hot cup of coffee appears right under Kris' nose, tan with the bit of cream that's been added, and he looks up to see Zitao standing over him, still smiling.
"Just a bit of cream, right?"
Kris blinks, the crinkling of Zitao's eyes distracting him, and the fluttering is back. Forcing the feeling away, he gives Zitao a tightlipped smile. "Thanks. How'd you know?"
"I just pay attention, I guess." Zitao's own smile widens a little as he studies Kris, eyes glittering.
Kris wraps his fingers around the cup as he watches Zitao walk back to his desk, the heat from the coffee warming Kris all the way to the tips of his toes.
"The problem," Chanyeol says, pacing back and forth down the length of the conference room, "is that neither of you are married."
"Chanyeol's a poll analyst," Baekhyun explains proudly at Zitao's confused look.
"He's also Baekhyun's boyfriend," Kris offers, trying to ignore how nice Zitao looks in the glasses he's wearing, and Baekhyun makes a noise of annoyance.
"Significant other!" he corrects loudly.
"Exactly," Chanyeol interrupts. He eyes them both keenly. "Neither of you are planning on getting married, are you? No girlfriends? Or… other-friends?"
Kris has always been too busy with work to date, and his preferences had made him more cautious as his political career took off. He shakes his head, and can't stop the little bubble of happiness that expands in his chest when Zitao does the same.
"I guess that's not too bad," Chanyeol sighs. "We'll take a hit on the family values vote, but the housewives won't care very much because you're both hot."
Baekhyun is scandalized. "Chanyeol!"
During the argument that follows, Kris tries not to think about how empty his house feels sometimes, half the rooms unused and his clothes spread between both the closets in the master bedroom, because it's all been worth it, it will be when they win-
He feels something tap his foot underneath the table and notices Zitao smiling at him from across the conference table. His teeth are showing, and he jerks his head in the direction of the door.
"Lunch?" he mouths as Baekhyun launches into a rant, short arms moving like a windmill, and Chanyeol whines like a kicked puppy.
Kris nods, and they both get up as quietly as possible, ducking out the door before the other two notice they've moved.
"Couples," Kris says, rolling his eyes, and Zitao offers him a laugh. It's a genuine sound, smooth and unobtrusive, unlike Sehun's high-pitched giggling, and it makes Kris' stomach turn. He clears his throat. "Where do you want to go?"
"My favorite place to eat is right down the street," Zitao says, and when they step out onto the street, he stops Kris from being run over by a group of teenage girls with a hand to the small of his back. The hand doesn't move even after Kris rights himself, and all the giddiness that's swirling inside of him makes Kris think it might have been better if Zitao had let him be trampled.
Kris isn't a huge fan of airplanes, his height making him spend flights folded into the too-small chairs like a piece of human origami and leaving his spine aching, but he thinks maybe traveling with Zitao isn't so bad.
They sit next to each other in first class, the rest of the cabin empty because next to no one ever wants to fly to Ohio and the others had caught an earlier flight, and Kris dozes off halfway through their flight as Zitao reads a book, the late night before as they had prepared his speech for the rally tomorrow catching up with him.
When he wakes, someone's put a blanket over him and there's a cup of coffee on the little table between them. It's still warm when Kris picks it up, and he looks over at Zitao curiously.
Zitao's glasses are sliding down his nose and he notices Kris as he turns a page. "I didn't want to wake you," he says, and Kris thinks his cheeks might look a little pink beneath the rims of his glasses.
"Thanks," he says. The plane hits a bit of turbulence the exact moment he goes to take a sip, hot coffee slopping over the edges of the cup and onto Kris' hand. He yelps, and Zitao grabs his small napkin, trying to help.
"You okay?" Zitao asks after he's set the cup down. He's running the napkin over each of Kris' fingers, and Kris thinks maybe this was worth almost getting hot coffee all over the crotch of his pants.
His heart catches in his throat when Zitao sets the napkin aside and picks up Kris' hand again, as if to check for any burns, but somehow their fingers end up entwined and Kris thinks his eyes might fall out of his face.
"You can't help people if you're hurt," Zitao says by way of an explanation before turning to look out the window.
"I like you," Kris blurts out artlessly, because there's a reason he has a speechwriter and Zitao is running for office with him, and they're holding hands on an airplane of all places.
He feels ridiculous when all Zitao does is smile at the window, and Kris fumbles with his words a little more. "Do you-"
Zitao quiets him with a squeeze to their linked hands. "Shut up and hold my hand, Kris."
Kris' phone goes off at some ungodly hour and he flails for it, nearly ripping the outlet it's plugged into out of the wall in his haste to answer it.
"Hello?" he says, trying his best to sound awake.
"Did I wake you?" Baekhyun says, not sounding apologetic at all and Kris resists the urge to hang up. "You have a breakfast meeting in an hour and I know it'll take you that long to get ready so this is your wakeup call." Sehun's voice mumbles in the background and Baekhyun adds, "Also, Sehun can't find Zitao and he's not answering his phone. Did you see him last night after you checked in?"
Kris pauses.
"Well, It's a funny story-"
"If that's Sehun," Zitao's voice comes from behind him, warm chest pressing into Kris' shoulder so he can talk into the phone, "tell him I'm up and to stop being a mother hen."
"Kris," Baekhyun says. "Why is Zitao in your room?"
"Er."
"Kris," Baekhyun says. "Why does it sound like Zitao's in bed with you?"
"Um."
"Oh my god!" Baekhyun practically screams into the phone, and Sehun's awful giggle comes through the line.
"I can't believe you guys hooked up for the first time in Ohio," Baekhyun shrieks and Kris cringes.
"Swing state!" he hears Sehun say between giggles and Zitao laughs quietly behind him, pressing a kiss to Kris' shoulder and resting his hands on the bare skin of his belly.
"Breakfast meeting in a hour," he tells Zitao. Zitao just hums, his hair brushing the side of Kris' neck as his hands move lower, and Kris thinks he could definitely get used to this.
Sehun's still laughing over the phone, making some kind of joke about being "politically erect", and Kris hangs up.
Written by: hyperlydian
Pairing: Kris/Tao
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Drug use (off-camera), incredibly mild sexual humor, politics
Summary: Kris Wu is living his life-long dream of running for president, but Huang Zitao, his not-so-conventional running partner, could care less about getting to the White House.
A/N: As this is a crackfic, I've taken the liberty of fiddling with the members' ages and nationalities (obviously). For the purposes of this story, they are all American citizens, and it is safe to assume that everyone is in their late 30s (as a person has to be at least 35 to run for president), except for Jongin, who for some reason is still the right age to be a college intern. Hopefully, though, you won't think on it too much and simply sit back and enjoy the show!
"Huang Zitao? Wasn't he the one whose entire platform was the national legalization of pot?"
"Marijuana, Kris. You have to call it marijuana if you're running for president."
Kris waves Baekhyun, his campaign manager, off with a huge hand. "I met him a few years ago, didn't I?" He remembers seeing Zitao across the room at the DNC a few weeks ago, too, after somebody pointed him out. "Governor from Washington state?"
"Yes. Every election he's run in, he's won in a landslide."
"Are you sure this is a good idea? He doesn't seem very… very," Kris finishes lamely. Well. He has a speechwriter for a reason.
"Everyone agrees this will help unify party support for the election." Baekhyun turns his coffee cup around in his hand, an anxious habit Kris' seen on many occasions over the past year. "I know on the surface, he might seem a little…"
"Ridiculous?"
"Revolutionary," Baekhyun says pointedly, "but I think there's something there."
Kris is unconvinced. "He went to Stanford."
"And NYU before that. So?"
"Stanford's not a real ivy le-"
"Propaganda!" Junmyeon shouts from the other room. Kris ignores him because Junmyeon is a people-pleaser who will make an excellent press secretary one day.
"Just-meet him, at least." Baekhyun looks at him beseechingly. "Kris, please."
"Huang Zitao?"
Baekhyun nods and Kris shoves his hands into his pockets, sighing.
He remembers shaking Zitao's hand a few years ago at some stuffy, politician-filled Christmas party, but his face is fuzzy in Kris' mind. Kris hopes Zitao will cave in under five minutes so they can just forget this whole thing and find a real vice presidential candidate to have as his running partner. "Okay."
The meeting could have gone a little better, Kris thinks, but his part in that is neither here nor there.
Huang Zitao, who, for all his party infamy, Kris has only seen up close once, is a lot taller than Kris remembers. His pants also happen to be a lot tighter. "Nice leopard print," Kris says once they're sitting down at the restaurant, nodding at the pattern on the inside of the collar of Zitao's otherwise plain grey dress shirt and snorting.
"Nice sweater vest," Zitao shoots back, looking unimpressed.
Kris glances down at his cream sweater vest, frowning. "This is cashmere."
Zitao scoffs, taking a sip of his water, and Kris thinks his mouth might be too large for his face. Or something. Whatever it is, it's obscene. "You're not what I… remember."
"I bet not." Zitao eyes Kris' hands as they fiddle with his napkin. "You're exactly what I remember, though. Nice and jaded by the system."
"Excuse me?"
Zitao shakes his head, pushing his chair back. "This was a waste of time. Have a nice day, Mr. Wu."
Kris watches Zitao walk out of the restaurant, the light from the fixtures catching on his perfectly shined shoes, and hadn't he thought Huang Zitao was going to be a pushover?
"Hey!" Kris says to the empty chair across from him, thirty seconds too late. "I'm the one that's supposed to say that!"
"He insulted my sweater." Kris sits back in his chair and definitely does not pout.
"Don't pout. You're going to be forty next year." Baekhyun types something into his blackberry. "Also, if it was that white sweater vest, I think my grandfather owns the same one."
"It's cashmere!"
"I think it's nice," Junmyeon says, straightening his tie using his reflection in a picture on the other side of the room. It's a horrible plum color, with green paisley patterned across it, and Kris makes a mental note to rethink the sweater vest next time.
"Regardless, selecting your running partner has nothing to do with his opinions on your clothes. The party all agrees-"
"I don't agree," Kris mutters, and Baekhyun shoots him a glare. He sinks lower in his chair.
"-and I've scheduled a meeting with Oh Sehun this afternoon, so we'll talk about the details then."
"Who's that?"
"Zitao's campaign strategist. He's supposed to be one of the best. We even tried to get him back last year, but he wouldn't budge."
"Campaign strategist?" Kris likes the sound of that. "Finally someone with some sense."
"For this campaign, you and Kris," Sehun says searchingly, leaning against Kris' desk, "you need to be like… like an ice cream sandwich."
"What."
Sehun looks at them like they're all idiots. "Kris is the cookie. He's what people see, what makes it a sandwich." Sehun makes a motion that looks kind of like a clam opening and closing that makes Kris' eyebrows draw together. "And Zitao, you're the ice cream in the middle." Sehun squishes his palms together and Zitao looks torn between confused and offended. "You're behind the scenes, holding everything together."
Everyone pauses. Baekhyun opens his mouth curiously, before Kris cuts in, "What people see? Are you calling me a figurehead?" at the same time Zitao bursts out, "Why do I have to be the ice cream?"
Sehun throws up his hands as though he's washing them of the world and Baekhyun shuts his mouth, mashing his own hands into his face.
"Does that mean you think I'm cold?" Zitao asks Sehun.
Kris scoffs. "Probably."
"Right, because I'm the one who's cold." Zitao rounds on Kris, poking him in the chest with his finger. It kind of hurts. "You're the walking iceberg in a suit."
"The only reason you're here is your completely sensationalist platform," Kris yells back. "Without it, not even your idiotic supporters would be able to ignore the fact that you perpetually look like you want to punch a baby in the face!"
There are patches of pink on Zitao's cheekbones and he shouts, "I don't care what anyone says about the American public, they'll never elect an ice sculpture as president!"
There's a sudden silence, like the fallout after an explosion, and he and Zitao are standing far too close. The lapels of Kris' suit jacket somehow ended up crumpled in Zitao's hands as they screamed at each other, and when he notices, he drops the fabric as though it's on fire.
They step apart, and Zitao makes for the door.
"Don't go punching any babies," Kris sneers while straightening his jacket. Zitao flips an obscene gesture over his shoulder without pausing and the door slams behind him.
"He just gave me the finger! Baekhyun can you believe he-"
Kris turns around to see Baekhyun slowly shoving his own tie into his mouth and Sehun is looking at Kris as though there's something very wrong with his face.
"Have I got something in my teeth?" he asks.
Sehun's eyes are heavily lidded, as always, but Kris feels as though his vacant stare is more judgmental than usual. "Just a bit of idiocy, right next to your right incisor," he drawls out, so matter-of-fact that Kris almost believes him. He drops the hand from his mouth a fraction of a second too late and Sehun smirks, before turning to Baekhyun and jerking his head towards the door. "We should…"
Baekhyun spits out his tie, pushing himself up off the couch. "Yeah." He looks at Kris. "And you should go apologize."
"Me?" Despite their height difference, Baekhyun looks kind of intimidating with little bits of drool smudged at the corners of his mouth.
"Yes."
"But I didn't-"
"Apologize."
"Fine."
Sehun seems less irritated when he and Baekhyun reach the door and he turns back to Kris. "It's way worse for Zitao, you know. I bet you don't even care about ice," Sehun explains simply, "but Zitao loves babies."
Kris finds Zitao out back of the office building, sitting on one of the benches in the smoking area. He almost scoffs, because he probably should have looked there first, considering, but there's no cigarette in Zitao's hands, only a cell phone. Kris blinks, watching Zitao's fingers tap rapidly at the keyboard, before walking over.
Zitao doesn't look up, even when Kris casts a shadow over him. Kris just stares at him for a minute. "You're not smoking."
"Of course not. Cigarettes are disgusting."
"But you're…What about the pot thing?"
Zitao still doesn't look up. "Don't be stupid."
Taking a deep breath, Kris pushes past being offended and says, "I'm sorry. For when I said you looked like you wanted to punch a baby, I mean."
This time, Zitao glances at him. His hair is falling across his forehead and it's almost like Zitao is looking up at him through his eyelashes.
Kris clears his throat. "Okay?"
"Sure," Zitao says, and goes back to his phone.
Kris waits a beat. "This is the part where you're supposed to say you're sorry for calling me an ice sculpture. That's how this works."
"What?"
"You called me an iceberg in a suit."
"Oh, right. I'm sorry."
Zitao doesn't sound sorry at all and Kris grits his teeth before bursting out, "What's your problem?"
"My problem?" Zitao sighs, sitting back against the bench with the hand holding his phone dangling by his side.
"You have a chance at the White House. A once-in-a-lifetime chance. Don't you care?"
"Why should I?" Kris sputters a little, thinking of how he'd watched the State of the Union at age six with wide eyes fixed on the president's face and what his mother's laughter had sounded like when he turned to her and asked how do I get his job?. He can hardly remember a time when he didn't want to run for president. Zitao doesn't seem to notice Kris' trip down memory lane, and continues, "Politics like this is just a sham. It's not about providing people with the freedom of choice or democracy. It's about power, and I'm not interested in that."
"Everyone's interested in power. It's part of what makes us human," Kris reasons, but the words sound stale even to his own ears.
Zitao's eyes go hard. "If it's being used to control people rather than help them, I'm not."
"I don't want to control people!" Kris says, a strange sick feeling beginning to roll around in his stomach. "I'm not like-"
"As far as I'm concerned, you're just like the rest of them."
Kris's mouth drops open to defend himself again, but no words come, and he's stuck watching as Zitao stands, pocketing his phone and walking back inside the office building.
Back in college, Kris had been seen as a little weird. Not in a repulsive way, but his friends definitely would have described him as a little quirky. He'd worked hard to get where he was, the son of a single mom clinging to big dreams as he climbed his way, with the help of scholarships, to two schools at the top of the education food chain.
Luckily, Kris was charismatic and imposing enough that no one ever gave him any trouble, but he was still known around campus as "that weird politics major that'll talk your ear off about the power of democracy", and his friends knew that he could usually be found with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, shuffling through reference books and taking notes in his cramped handwriting as he muttered earnestly about the Bill of Rights.
After his conversation with Zitao, though, Kris wonders what's changed since then. He thinks back to the first time he'd been elected to congress, the thrill of victory that had gone flying through him, and wonders when it became about winning instead of helping people.
Unfortunately, this realization comes to him when he's in the middle of a meeting with Baekhyun and Sehun about travel schedules.
"What if we win the election, what then?" he says, having been ranting for the past ten minutes, and Sehun and Baekhyun are looking at him like he's an impending train wreck they can't stop watching. "I'll end up in the White House and the whole country will be one heart attack away from having someone who wears leopard print and drinks herbal tea as president!"
"That's a bit dramatic," Baekhyun says. "You're not even forty."
Sehun shrugs. "Considering our nation's history, that's hardly the worst thing that could happen."
"And you." Kris turns to Sehun. "You're supposed to be a genius, but you're not. All you do is talk about ice cream sandwiches and babies and sometimes you're so impassive that I think you're face is actually a mask!"
"Well that's quite rude," Sehun sniffs.
"Ignore him. I think he's having a panic attack." Baekhyun sighs and turns his attention back to Kris, who is busy tugging at the collar of his dress shirt because he feels like he's about to suffocate. "Are you saying you don't want Zitao as your running partner?"
"No! I-I just don't know how to talk to him!"
Sehun shrugs again. "Zitao's actually not that complicated. Just tell him the truth. He can figure things out from there."
"The truth," Kris repeats to himself. "What didn't I think of that?"
"Because you're a politician," Sehun says unhelpfully, and Baekhyun snorts. Kris ignores both of them.
Zitao's been ignoring him for two days-though, Kris thinks, that's not much different from how he'd been acting before, except now Zitao doesn't even bother glaring in his direction during their joint meetings and Kris is left feeling irritated and pitifully sorry for himself while Baekhyun rolls his eyes.
By the third day, he's had enough time to think about what Zitao said and decides to swallow his pride and try to apologize.
"So," Kris says. "I, um, thought about what you said. The other day." Zitao waits for him to go on, and so he does. "About how politics like this isn't right. Back in college, I was… People called me weird, because I cared, you know? I really cared about speaking for other people and making a difference, and I think we could make a difference if we did this. The election, I mean. Together. Because I still do care." Kris feels himself flush, something he hasn't allowed himself to do for years and the collar of his button-up is suddenly too tight as his stomach squirms under Zitao's stare.
"I'd say you were lying," Zitao says thoughtfully, "but I think if you really were, it would have come out better than that."
Kris scowls.
"That was a really terrible speech." Zitao stands, making his way around the desk to stand in front of Kris. Kris feels like he should be offended, except that there's a reason he has a speechwriter, and he's too busy being glad Zitao is tall because that means they can look each other in the eye without having to try.
"Is that a no?" Kris asks.
Zitao shakes his head. "It was an awful speech, but it had something." He holds out his hand for Kris to shake. "I'll do it."
"Really?" Kris hadn't actually expected this to work.
"Just shut up and shake my hand."
The first day they combine their offices, Kris spends the whole morning trying to ignore Sehun staring at him. He finally snaps around eleven o'clock after a meeting with Jongdae about poster designs had devolved into chaos when he met Zitao's ground campaign manager Lu Han, who ended up being an old friend of Jongdae's from college. Kris walks away when the conversation turned into a bizarre pissing contest about action figure collections and finds Sehun still looking at him.
"What?!" Kris says, much too loudly, but Sehun doesn't even flinch, cheek resting on his palm as he stares. "What are you staring at?"
"Well," Sehun says slowly, "if I squint and turn my head like this," he tilts his head at an angle that makes it look like it's detached from his neck, "your face kind of looks like Jupiter."
Zitao's intern, Jongin, who has the sleepiest eyes Kris has ever seen, lets out a peal of laughter and Sehun blinks at the sound, as though waking up from a dream.
Kris watches, morbidly curious, as Sehun looks back down at the flowchart that's been sitting in front of him for the past four hours and begins working on it as though nothing's happened.
Zitao laughs quietly when he passes by.
"Is he…?" Kris tries to ask, not knowing how to phrase the question when they're supposed to be at work.
Zitao shrugs, not seeming to care. "That's the mystery of Oh Sehun. I'm surprised you don't know each other actually. He was at Princeton right around when you were."
"Really?" Sehun has to be younger than him by at least a few years, and Kris is incredulous.
"We went to high school together for a year, but then he went off to college really early." Zitao sends Kris a look out of the corner of his eye. "I guess you wouldn't have run in the same circle of friends."
Kris knows Zitao must be thinking of when he'd said people called him weird back in college and scowls. "You're right. I didn't hang out with potheads-"
"Anyway," Zitao cuts in breezily, "you shouldn't sell him short. He's kind of a genius."
Kris looks back of at Sehun, who's already finished the flow chart and seems to be talking on his cell phone to Al Gore, all vacantness erased from his face, and decides it's probably best not to underestimate anything having to do with Huang Zitao.
Baekhyun walks through Kris' front door without even asking when it opens.
"Kris, I have had the Best Party Idea Ever." He elbows his way into Kris' living room, and Kris can practically hear the capitals. "See, it's a timewarp party, and you wear all your clothes in layers, and the music would start with like, the 20's, right? And you'd be wearing your 20's outfit on top. And then the music changes, and you take those clothes off for the next era. It would be like time travel! I don't know what would happen after you ran out of clothes, though. Does that mean we'll be naked in the future? Weird."
Kris watches as Baekhyun slides around on the couch, trying to find a comfortable position, but his legs don't seem to be cooperating. He tugs at his own shoe and lets out a giggle.
Kris stares. "Oh my god, are you high."
"What, no," Baekhyun answers too quickly.
"You were hanging out with Sehun, weren't you?"
Baekhyun lets his head loll on the arm of the couch as he shakes it back and forth, eyes rolling. "…Nooooo."
"Baekhyun."
"We were just bonding! Two campaign managers, hangin' out, preparing for when dos become uno." Baekhyun reaches up, rubbing his hair between his fingertips. "Hair is so weird, wow."
"Dos become uno? What does that even mean?" Kris took a few semesters of Spanish in high school, so he knows that it means, but not really what it means.
Baekhyun doesn't seem to notice, too busy with his hair. "Jongin asked if you and Zitao were boinking yet because you have crazy sexual tension, so I told him I didn't think you were because you're emotionally stunted and casual sex gives you panic attacks but he said-"
"Okay," Kris interrupts, grabbing Baekhyun's arm out of the air and pulling him up. "Time for bed."
"Really?" Baekhyun sounds suspicious and Kris sighs, tucking Baekhyun under his arm so he can't run off.
"Yes. You can even sleep in my bed."
Baekhyun doesn't protest much after that, snuggling into the middle of the king-sized bed that could have fit at least ten more of him, and Kris slumps awkwardly onto the couch, feet hanging off the end. Baekhyun will sleep it off and Kris hopes he won't remember much of this in the morning, but the seed has been planted. He dozes off thinking about the distinctive bow of Zitao's lips, neck already aching from the arm of the sofa, but he almost doesn't mind.
It's not a crush, exactly. It's just that Kris maybe thinks Zitao is kind of attractive and his ideas about freedom of choice make his heart, the part that loved democracy and civic duty, flutter excitedly.
"D'you-Do you want to go get some lunch?"
Zitao looks up from the papers in front of him, confused. "What?"
"It's noon," Kris tries again. "I was asking if you wanted to get something to eat?"
"I'm on European time. I don't eat lunch 'til two."
"Oh, were you there recently? Jet-lag?"
Zitao is staring at Kris like he's a complete idiot and Kris fidgets, something he hasn't done since before he first ran for public office. "I've never been to Europe."
"Of course not," Kris mutters as Sehun grabs Zitao's attention to talk to him about a TV appearance, and then sighs dramatically. "I guess I'll be eating by myself then."
Kris looks around for someone to take pity on him, but no one else seems to care.
They're stuck late at the office preparing for the upcoming debate (which is still a whole month away, but Sehun had muttered something about Pavlovian training, and Kris had thought it better not to ask) when he decides to try again.
"I'm getting a cup of coffee. Anyone else want something?" Kris asks, standing and stretching. He glances over at Zitao, watching the way his hair falls over his eyes and ignores the feeling in his stomach. He's much to old to get butterflies. "Zitao? Tea?"
"Hey!" Jongin says, looking offended and sitting bolt upright in the chair he'd been lazing in. "I'm his intern. That's my job."
"But-"
Jongin is already up and heading into the other room where they keep the coffee and hot water heater.
"Aren't you supposed to be creating jobs for the American people?" Jongin says on his way back in the room, steaming mug of tea in hand. "What would your supporters say if they knew you were trying to take my job and aid the country's skyrocketing unemployment rates, huh?"
He looks around at Kris accusingly and Kris catches Zitao's eye over Jongin's shoulder. Zitao is smiling at him, lower lip pulled into his mouth as he laughs while Kris tries to figure out what to say.
After a few seconds, he decides it's not worth the effort. "Could you make me some coffee, then?"
Jongin scoffs, settling back into his chair. "Are you trying to give me more work or something? I'm not your intern."
Kris stands for a few moments before going back to his seat and slumping back into it, fiddling with some papers as he tries to figure out where he went so wrong with his life.
"Here." A hot cup of coffee appears right under Kris' nose, tan with the bit of cream that's been added, and he looks up to see Zitao standing over him, still smiling.
"Just a bit of cream, right?"
Kris blinks, the crinkling of Zitao's eyes distracting him, and the fluttering is back. Forcing the feeling away, he gives Zitao a tightlipped smile. "Thanks. How'd you know?"
"I just pay attention, I guess." Zitao's own smile widens a little as he studies Kris, eyes glittering.
Kris wraps his fingers around the cup as he watches Zitao walk back to his desk, the heat from the coffee warming Kris all the way to the tips of his toes.
"The problem," Chanyeol says, pacing back and forth down the length of the conference room, "is that neither of you are married."
"Chanyeol's a poll analyst," Baekhyun explains proudly at Zitao's confused look.
"He's also Baekhyun's boyfriend," Kris offers, trying to ignore how nice Zitao looks in the glasses he's wearing, and Baekhyun makes a noise of annoyance.
"Significant other!" he corrects loudly.
"Exactly," Chanyeol interrupts. He eyes them both keenly. "Neither of you are planning on getting married, are you? No girlfriends? Or… other-friends?"
Kris has always been too busy with work to date, and his preferences had made him more cautious as his political career took off. He shakes his head, and can't stop the little bubble of happiness that expands in his chest when Zitao does the same.
"I guess that's not too bad," Chanyeol sighs. "We'll take a hit on the family values vote, but the housewives won't care very much because you're both hot."
Baekhyun is scandalized. "Chanyeol!"
During the argument that follows, Kris tries not to think about how empty his house feels sometimes, half the rooms unused and his clothes spread between both the closets in the master bedroom, because it's all been worth it, it will be when they win-
He feels something tap his foot underneath the table and notices Zitao smiling at him from across the conference table. His teeth are showing, and he jerks his head in the direction of the door.
"Lunch?" he mouths as Baekhyun launches into a rant, short arms moving like a windmill, and Chanyeol whines like a kicked puppy.
Kris nods, and they both get up as quietly as possible, ducking out the door before the other two notice they've moved.
"Couples," Kris says, rolling his eyes, and Zitao offers him a laugh. It's a genuine sound, smooth and unobtrusive, unlike Sehun's high-pitched giggling, and it makes Kris' stomach turn. He clears his throat. "Where do you want to go?"
"My favorite place to eat is right down the street," Zitao says, and when they step out onto the street, he stops Kris from being run over by a group of teenage girls with a hand to the small of his back. The hand doesn't move even after Kris rights himself, and all the giddiness that's swirling inside of him makes Kris think it might have been better if Zitao had let him be trampled.
Kris isn't a huge fan of airplanes, his height making him spend flights folded into the too-small chairs like a piece of human origami and leaving his spine aching, but he thinks maybe traveling with Zitao isn't so bad.
They sit next to each other in first class, the rest of the cabin empty because next to no one ever wants to fly to Ohio and the others had caught an earlier flight, and Kris dozes off halfway through their flight as Zitao reads a book, the late night before as they had prepared his speech for the rally tomorrow catching up with him.
When he wakes, someone's put a blanket over him and there's a cup of coffee on the little table between them. It's still warm when Kris picks it up, and he looks over at Zitao curiously.
Zitao's glasses are sliding down his nose and he notices Kris as he turns a page. "I didn't want to wake you," he says, and Kris thinks his cheeks might look a little pink beneath the rims of his glasses.
"Thanks," he says. The plane hits a bit of turbulence the exact moment he goes to take a sip, hot coffee slopping over the edges of the cup and onto Kris' hand. He yelps, and Zitao grabs his small napkin, trying to help.
"You okay?" Zitao asks after he's set the cup down. He's running the napkin over each of Kris' fingers, and Kris thinks maybe this was worth almost getting hot coffee all over the crotch of his pants.
His heart catches in his throat when Zitao sets the napkin aside and picks up Kris' hand again, as if to check for any burns, but somehow their fingers end up entwined and Kris thinks his eyes might fall out of his face.
"You can't help people if you're hurt," Zitao says by way of an explanation before turning to look out the window.
"I like you," Kris blurts out artlessly, because there's a reason he has a speechwriter and Zitao is running for office with him, and they're holding hands on an airplane of all places.
He feels ridiculous when all Zitao does is smile at the window, and Kris fumbles with his words a little more. "Do you-"
Zitao quiets him with a squeeze to their linked hands. "Shut up and hold my hand, Kris."
Kris' phone goes off at some ungodly hour and he flails for it, nearly ripping the outlet it's plugged into out of the wall in his haste to answer it.
"Hello?" he says, trying his best to sound awake.
"Did I wake you?" Baekhyun says, not sounding apologetic at all and Kris resists the urge to hang up. "You have a breakfast meeting in an hour and I know it'll take you that long to get ready so this is your wakeup call." Sehun's voice mumbles in the background and Baekhyun adds, "Also, Sehun can't find Zitao and he's not answering his phone. Did you see him last night after you checked in?"
Kris pauses.
"Well, It's a funny story-"
"If that's Sehun," Zitao's voice comes from behind him, warm chest pressing into Kris' shoulder so he can talk into the phone, "tell him I'm up and to stop being a mother hen."
"Kris," Baekhyun says. "Why is Zitao in your room?"
"Er."
"Kris," Baekhyun says. "Why does it sound like Zitao's in bed with you?"
"Um."
"Oh my god!" Baekhyun practically screams into the phone, and Sehun's awful giggle comes through the line.
"I can't believe you guys hooked up for the first time in Ohio," Baekhyun shrieks and Kris cringes.
"Swing state!" he hears Sehun say between giggles and Zitao laughs quietly behind him, pressing a kiss to Kris' shoulder and resting his hands on the bare skin of his belly.
"Breakfast meeting in a hour," he tells Zitao. Zitao just hums, his hair brushing the side of Kris' neck as his hands move lower, and Kris thinks he could definitely get used to this.
Sehun's still laughing over the phone, making some kind of joke about being "politically erect", and Kris hangs up.