lowlights (1/2) ; for riseandrain
Title: lowlights
Rating: [nc17]
Side pairing/s: slight, implied chansoo
Length: 15,610 words
Summary: mama powers!au; all it takes is a year and an impromptu summer trip for baekhyun to figure out that he's crazy about him.
Warning/s: sex, swearing
Notes: i apologise greatly for this mess of a fic, what with its added au and complete destruction of the prompt. thanks to my lovely beta, astrid, for helping me in my times of great need ;;
Baekhyun was never good at voicing his feelings.
Jongin breaks the news to him on a Sunday afternoon after a morning of sleeping in, catching the last half of the game while waiting for pizza to come, and an impromptu massage from Jongin as his third congratulations that week for surviving another year. He hadn’t planned to stay to night-or rather, the entire weekend-but it’s hardly a blip in his routine these days. Baekhyun never plans it, really. Sure, it’s usually Jongin that’s over at his place, (mostly because one of his roommates, Kyungsoo, cooks a better galbi jiggae than anyone and everyone’s mom) and week after week it’s typically Baekhyun’s couch that’s getting slept on. They broke their near semester-long record over finals week last week, but Baekhyun blames it on the bedhead and fangs that accompanied those three all nighters in a row and two gallons of coffee.
“Hyung?” Jongin murmurs, fingers threaded deep in the knots in Baekhyun’s right shoulder. He merely groans in return.
When several unanswered seconds of silence pass by with Jongin’s hands suddenly digging in like hammers, Baekhyun twists his head around to see Jongin’s face contorted in confusion. “What is it? Something wrong? Ah-hey,” he says after a particularly forceful jab just beneath his shoulder blade. He’s clearly not paying enough attention to be the most meticulous masseuse. Jongin shakes his head and looks at the TV like there’s something to see. Shifts a bit, takes a deep breath.
“Nothing, I was just…” he pauses, seemingly taken by the floating dust illuminated by the light coming in from the open window. “Hyung, where are you going? For the summer break?”
And then a switch flips (literally, too, because Baekhyun's busy thoughts occasionally translate into an overhead light buzzing to life). Jongin's worried. Knowing Jongin, he's probably been worried, fretting over the question and the answer for weeks. Baekhyun's spent the better part of his free time with Jongin over the past year-Jongin's freshman year-trying to help him get a hold on the whole teleportation thing, and it doesn't hit him until right then how much time they've really been glued to each other.
Baekhyun shakes Jongin's hands off before his muscles can get assaulted again. "Probably just sticking around, since I've got the apartment and all. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, too. I mean, what's the point of going home when I have a personal chef and the freedom to play League past midnight?" Jongin cracks a smile at that.
"Don't you want to see your family?" he asks, moving to twist his arms around the nearest pillow, hugging it close. Baekhyun acts like he's thinking, puts in the extra effort to crease his brow and put a finger to his mouth like he's really weighing his options. He shakes his head.
"I'll be a senior next year. Trust me, you'll get to that point when you don't feel like going home. You'll realise how annoying they really are," he says easily, pushing himself out of Jongin's lap to stretch.
Jongin waits a moment before nodding slowly in reply. The way his face is twisting right now-it’s like he’s looking for someone’s permission. Someone to tell him if it’s okay to keep talking. "Well, I'm going home for the holiday. Back to Busan to see my parents," he mumbles.
Oh.
He's not sure why he assumed anything different, especially since Jongin's in the dorms and freshly nineteen, but Baekhyun grinds his teeth anyway and wonders what he's supposed to do after he gets a job and gets off of work. No Jongin, just Chanyeol and Kyungsoo. It shouldn't bother him as much as it does, but he's suddenly trying very hard not to think about the prospect of not spending every other afternoon in one place or another, trying to get Jongin to transport himself without a single nosebleed or passing out. It's become his routine, and for a lack of a better way to explain it, he doesn’t like upsetting his routine.
"That's a little…far." It's all he says. All he can say.
Jongin lies across the couch and continues to press the pillow to his chest, now staring directly at Baekhyun. "Well, it's not like you can't visit me. Or maybe I can visit you. It's just a few months." And even Jongin doesn't sound so sure of himself.
"Are you sure that's a good idea? Two whole months away from…us?" He almost says 'me'-himself-but Chanyeol is right there in the back of his mind, setting something on fire as he rambles about taking some of the credit. Jongin cocks an eyebrow.
"Why wouldn't it be?"
"I don't know, let's ask Sehun's dick," Baekhyun says, then quickly whips around just be sure that Jongin's roommate isn't around.
Jongin shoves the pillow in Baekhyun's direction and catches him off guard, nearly sending him of the couch entirely. "Oh come on, that was one time! It's not like I wanted to zap myself into his bed while he had a girl over. In fact, I've been trying my hardest to forget, thank you." Baekhyun grins, pushing the pillow back in Jongin's direction.
"And your poor dance teacher?"
"At least I didn't see him naked. That was just awkward," he defends lamely, suppressing a smile.
"Okay, but you've phased a couple of times in public. How would your parents feel about you disappearing at the dinner table in the middle of some story about how amazing I am?”
Jongin sits straight up, glaring at him. “You think I’m gonna talk about you to my parents?” he scoffs with a haughty expression to match. Baekhyun nuzzles up against Jongin’s leg. It’s a pretty teasing gesture, considering he would rarely do it under any other circumstance, but he still catches the little curl of Jongin’s lips before he snuggles in closer and shuts his eyes. Jongin’s just one big softie that way. A little skinship and he caves. Not that he’s bragging.
“Of course. Everyone talks about me. You probably won’t even be able to resist introducing me to them. And your sisters.” It's quiet for a little too long, so Baekhyun perks up and sees him staring. He's been doing that lately-just staring at him with this faint smile and crows feet. Honestly, it's beginning to worry him.
As is this trip, actually. Two months away from the only people who have a fraction of understanding what it means when Jongin’s talking one moment and gone the next. He’s staged at least two power outages more than his usual yearly quota, but if Jongin is holed up at his parents in Busan he won’t be able to do a single thing if he screws anything up. He shouldn’t be so anxious about the very idea of it, yet here he is, heart hammering in his chest at the thought.
“Maybe you should stay,” he says, hoping for it come off casual, but he’s sure he must sound desperate. “You could always go up for a weekend or something, but. You know. Come back and stay with us.” He can feel Jongin shifting uncomfortably again.
“Hyung…” he starts, but he doesn’t get a chance to finish. Not before Sehun is bursting into the room, in all his loud mouthed glory. Baekhyun hears something out of his mouth about whether or not the couch is still a safe place to sit, but Jongin’s on him and throwing punches before he even has a chance to respond. He would normally say something witty to put Sehun in his place, but his head’s a mess of thoughts and not the comically inspired kind.
A year with Jongin, fighting through his ups and downs as he tried to navigate his abilities. Luckily the dance program had kept him around for winter break, but Baekhyun hadn’t even considered the complications that might’ve come if he’d left for even just those couple of weeks. Now weeks are turned to months and he’s almost positive that if Jongin isn’t right next to him for every second of it, something’s bound to happen. But when he eyes Jongin from across the room, whose arms have Sehun wrapped tightly in a headlock, he receives a smile. It doesn’t ease his concerns, but his makes his stomach flip just a little. And all of it should really worry him, but it doesn’t. Not right now.
Busan. Two months. Not ideal, but doable. When Baekhyun leaves Jongin’s dorm that night, almost forgets to say goodnight.
Looking back, Baekhyun thinks that his first meeting with Jongin might’ve still happened regardless-fate, he might even call it-although delayed by a month or so. Stuffed in the farthest seats away from the stage of some school dance recital that Chanyeol’d insisted on seeing as a favour to the director whom he’d incidentally set fire to only a week prior (despite his utter distaste for the very idea), he'd found himself looking straight at him-Kim Jongin.
Chanyeol had tried to convince him earlier that morning that it’d been ‘a slip of the fingers’-what happened to the director-but Baekhyun knows better than to count on Chanyeol’s self control on less than three hours of sleep and thanked God that the poor guy was still under the impression that Chanyeol had curiously ignited him with a matchstick he’d thought was a toothpick (and not his own finger). And between mulling over Chanyeol’s innate gift for alibis and his sheer stupidity for trying to function properly, being so exhausted, his eyes sort of find their way to settling on that one kid-front and center stage for a majority of the performance and far more interesting a case than his brainless roommate’s sleep-deprived fuck ups.
However, that’s not the first time he sees him, all crows feet and perfectly tanned skin, sanity ranging from smiles to panic to excessive bowing and stuttering. No-in fact, it’s Baekhyun’s third late night in the practice rooms, head pulsing from all the high notes and body swaying like he’s on the verge of passing out. Sleep isn't an option with a recital of his own only a few weeks away. Not yet, at least. He's barely managed to jump the high note in this piece when Jongin comes crashing in, landing gracefully against the ivory keys of the grand in the corner.
It only takes a moment for him to recover, standing up slowly with music in hand and brushing off his only clean pair of jeans as he looks up at a boy younger than him by maybe a few years. He looks severely startled, leaning against the door of the practice room for support, chest heaving and mouth gaping like a fish out of water. Magic tricks aren’t really Baekhyun’s thing, so when some kid randomly materalises in front of him like a rabbit out of the depths of a top hat, he decides almost instantly that there’re only a few logical explanations. Only one of which he really, seriously considers.
“So how long have you known?” Baekhyun’s voice cuts through the moments of silence that follow. He couldn’t sound more bored if he tried.
The kid’s head shoots up, eyes wide and utterly astounded by the fact that there could possibly be another human being in the room. It should be Baekhyun’s first inclination to welcome him, maybe even ask about his well-being and sympathise with him, but he also vaguely recalls getting Chanyeol a World’s Best Girlfriend mug for his birthday. Chanyeol had called it poor judgement; he calls it spontaneity. With a whole lot of straightforwardness.
“Huh…?”
“About your abilities?” he suggests lightly. “Gift? Power? No?” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, cards a hand through already messy hair and shuffles forward, a visible glint in his eye. It’s not that obvious, apparently.
“I don’t-uh. Who are you? Wait-where am I? No-”
Baekhyun makes a show of it after realising what he’s dealing with, picking the limp figure off the piano and interrogating him as he drapes him over one shoulder. “Don’t tell me this is your first time,” he says to the nameless intruder, a mischievous glint in his eyes as he sends a quick glance in his direction. “You certainly crash landed like a pro. Never met a teleporter before, but I’d imagined they’d be a little smoother," he says, jabbing a finger into the kid's side and grinning as he flinches. "You got a name?”
Baekhyun smiles when Jongin stumbles uselessly over his words-Don’t know what you’re talking about, Baekhyun hears him say. "Jongin. Kim Jongin." And then he's screaming like an adolescent girl. It's clear that talking this out will be counterproductive, so Baekhyun flicks his wrist at the ceiling and watches as a stuttering light show sets off over their heads.
So, with arms outstretched and a particularly frustrated moan stuck in his throat, he surges forward and seals the deal, grabs a hold of Jongin’s arm, and feels a jolt go through both of them like an electric shock. If he's learned anything in college, it's that a little bit of stress is always an effective kick starter.
That’s how it starts. The same fizzling pop that was heard when Jongin first came crashing into that practice room, the way that the air practically tears itself apart to make room for something that shouldn’t be there. Jongin fades in and out, switches back and forth between transparency and solidity and is completely unconscious as they land feet first in the middle of what he assumes is Jongin’s dorm. After a few minutes of making sure his limbs are all in the right place and gathering his thoughts, he brushes past what he believes to be Jongin’s roommate (Sehun, he unfortunately finds out only days later) who nearly chokes on his own tongue trying to sort out the near corpse on the bed, but doesn’t even try to say anything when Baekhyun hands him a small scrap of paper with his name and number on it.
“Tell him to give me a call when he wakes up. He’s gonna need someone to talk to,” he says calmly.
He barely gets to enjoy the priceless expression on Sehun’s face. He’s out the door in a few seconds and already has Chanyeol on the phone by the time he’s in the hall.
“It’s like squeezing your brain through a tube,” he gushes as he stalks down the hall, heading home and moving his fingers between the keys in his pocket. “I mean, don’t get me wrong-it’s cool-but I can’t imagine turning myself to mush and ending up with a killer headache every time I wanted to zap myself somewhere. And this kid still doesn’t even believe that’s what’s happening-the teleportation. It took a little encouragement from me to get him to even reproduce it.”
There’s a light cough of laughter over the speaker. “Please tell me you didn’t blind him by accident. I still feel bad for Jongdae.”
“No, you idiot. And that was temporary. More like an electric current sort of thing. It was…shocking,” Baekhyun scoffs, pitching his voice low as a couple walks by and sends him a look. He can hear Chanyeol groaning on the other end. “But what’s most important here is that he’s clueless and in denial.”
He can practically hear Chanyeol’s eyeballs rolling in their sockets. “How else did he explain the fact that one minute he was in your room and the next, back at his dorm?”
“Well, he couldn’t. Not really.”
“What do you mean?” Baekhyun grins, even though Chanyeol can’t see it. It’s probably clear enough in his voice.
“Passed out on the way back. Couldn’t even keep his eyes open for the first few seconds. I had to practically throw him back onto his bed before getting the hell out of there and avoiding his dumbfounded roommate,” he says. What happened with Kyungsoo and Luhan last year seems like ages ago to Baekhyun, and without breathing a word of it Chanyeol who will inevitable mock him for his seemingly hidden, charitable nature, Baekhyun makes a mental note to make Jongin his new project. A teleporter is something shiny-something new. He’s not about to pass up a chance like this.
So without further touching on the subject, he rambles on to Chanyeol about budgeting, arguing shortly about the importance of his online drama membership versus filling up on something other than instant rice, and hangs up just before walking into their dorm.
“No, I’m keeping the Batman underwear,” Baekhyun says sleepily over the phone, Wednesday morning. If it weren’t for the Girls’ Generation ringtone blasting off to his right, he’s pretty sure he’d still be asleep. He’s almost surprised that Jongin isn’t still asleep until he remembers what day it is. Rows of packed boxes and one trip to his apartment already, it’s the day that Jongin up and leaves him for two solid months. It’s the day that he goes home to his unassuming family and likely upends all of their hard work over the past nine months by teleporting himself into the neighbour’s shower. Or something like that.
Jongin has a surprising amount of shit laying around Baekhyun’s apartment. Or rather, had. He’s retrieved most of it in these last two days of packing, but here he is on the phone with him at seven in the morning, listening to him go on about missing socks, a sweatshirt, and apparently a pair of underwear.
“If we as much said we were moving out, he would probably have his stuff moved in here the same night. I mean, he practically lives here anyway,” Chanyeol had said sometime back in March. Baekhyun had aimed for his head when he’d thrown the pillow from the couch, but he’d managed to hit Kyungsoo square in the face instead. After a brutal session of near suffocation, Kyungsoo had even agreed. Jongin was commonplace in their apartment now, and between studying for music theory exams and sticking around while Jongin practised for recitals and going back home together, there was hardly room for argument.
“I’ll be over in a bit, ‘kay?” he hears his gruff morning voice say over the receiver, and Baekhyun just groans in reply, hanging up soon after.
When he makes his way to the kitchen to whip up some coffee, Chanyeol is already situated at the table, phone in hand and grinning at the screen. He looks up just in time to see Baekhyun glaring at him. “You’re up early,” Baekhyun mutters, pulling down a mug from one of the cupboards.
“As are you, princess,” he says, setting his phone down and mindlessly drawing flaming patterns in the air. Showoff. Baekhyun can’t really complain though; he’s probably just as bad as Chanyeol on a good day. The difference is that Chanyeol’s messing around usually ends in charred household items and first degree burns. An utter disaster.
Baekhyun lifts his arms over his head, stretching. “Yeah, well, Jongin decided to give me a nice wakeup call,” he explains, switching on the coffee maker. There’s a pregnant pause. He breathes in. “He’s leaving today.” Even out of the corner of his eye, he can see Chanyeol’s expression twisting into something critical, something scrutinising.
“Having a little separation anxiety, are we?” Baekhyun just rolls his eyes in reply. Sure, he’s endured years of this, but for some reason, he’s not having any of it today.
“Hardly. I’m glad to get the kid out of my hair. I’ll finally be able to eat the food that I buy,” he retorts. It’s not a complete lie; Jongin’s always been somewhat of an expert at eating his entire food supply. It’s because I’m a growing boy, he would defend, followed by a friendly swing at his shoulder from Baekhyun. That’s one thing he certainly won’t miss. He hears Chanyeol stifle a laugh behind him.
“Yeah, you sound really thrilled about it,” he says, voice laced with skepticism. “He’s not that far. We could always visit.” It sounds like Chanyeol’s sad attempt at comforting, but Baekhyun chooses to ignore it. He’s not stupid; he knows what he’s getting at.
“He can visit us,” Baekhyun supplies, taking a sip of his bitter drink. Coffee never really was his thing. “He’s the one that can zap himself from one coordinate to the next. If he wants to see us, he can teleport. I don’t trust him not to end up in the Dean’s office, but…” He takes another sip. Feels almost as bitter as this cup of espresso. Chanyeol’s eyes are on him again-he can practically feel him staring-but he once again ignores it. So, he’s being a little transparent. Not like Chanyeol isn’t; especially when it comes to Kyungsoo even if no one likes to say it out loud.
Chanyeol moves toward the counter and puts his own mug in the sink, leaning back against the counter. Smirks. “Whatever. I mean, you two are just friends. And you only met last year-has it really been a whole school year already? Wow… Anyway, it won’t kill you to be apart for a summer,” Chanyeol says, folding his arms. If he believed in that sort of thing, he might think Chanyeol is twisting the knife right now. Baekhyun lets out an audible sigh and shoots his roommate a look. He can feel himself caving a little to Chanyeol’s poor attempt at reverse psychology, and he hates himself for it.
“Let’s face it: he still has no idea what he’s doing. He’s probably gonna phase in front of his parents or some stranger and then get shipped off to some insane asylum-” he starts, running a hand through his hair.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s the problem? You’re worried about Jongin losing control of his powers?” Chanyeol promptly interrupts. Baekhyun waits out the silence, starts to open his mouth to refute it, but Chanyeol cuts him off again. “I mean, which of us is really ever sure of we’re doing? We’ve gotten a little better at handling it over the years, but Jongin’s not much different from us in terms of figuring out the whole supernatural abilities thing.”
Baekhyun shifts so he can look Chanyeol square in the eyes. “Yeah, but we’ve got time on our side. Jongin’s still so new at it. If he’s away from us for that long, who knows what could go wrong. Do you know what Yixing said about teleporters? What can happen to some of them?”
Chanyeol scoffs and straightens out. “As if he’s an expert.” Baekhyun nearly slams his cup down, but he catches himself and sets it down carefully, taking a deep breath.
“Not the point. He said that if Jongin’s not careful-if he doesn’t concentrate well enough, parts of him could get left behind. Limbs, Chanyeol. Sliced right through the wormhole. Leave it to a young, dumb kid like Jongin to do something like that. Get so cocky about his abilities that he just sends one half of himself across the ocean and the other half is stuck in his room somewhere. He hasn’t even practised going as far as Busan to Seoul. He’d probably pass out and lose a leg,” Baekhyun says, voice rising in volume. He hadn’t noticed that he was getting so loud, but Kyungsoo is at the door to attest to it.
“Someone wanna explain why I’ve been woken up at 7:30AM?” he growls from the doorframe, shoving his way past them to get at the fridge. Chanyeol obliges.
“Baekhyun is deathly afraid that Jongin is gonna murder himself over the break,” he offers. Kyungsoo shrugs like it’s a plausible explanation, but Baekhyun is ready to fight everyone on it before a single word gets out.
“Thanks for twisting my words, dickhead. I said,” Baekhyun spits, “that Jongin isn’t very experienced when it comes to teleporting and he’s bound to get himself into trouble. Let’s not forget the earthquake of your freshman year.” Baekhyun nods in Kyungsoo’s direction and watches him smile fondly at the memory. “And Chanyeol, it was just a couple of months ago that you set Jongin’s dance teacher on fucking fire.”
Chanyeol considers it for a moment and then shrugs. “Yeah, but doesn’t that just prove my point?” Kyungsoo pushes past them again as he heads for the table.
“And what’s your point?” Kyungsoo asks, bored. Like he’s the mediator. The coffee doesn’t seem to be helping anyone. Chanyeol just shoots a sly smile in Baekhyun’s direction and slides into the seat next to Kyungsoo.
“That this could happen to any one of us, at any time. Time is irrelevant if you’re not concentrating. Baek’s worrying too much.” Kyungsoo nods, once again accepting Chanyeol’s words as if they’re fact. God, it really must be too early. Kyungsoo would’ve normally drop kicked the both of them by now. Had a little common sense, too.
“This is a little unsettling, actually,” Kyungsoo mumbles around the rim of his mug. “Byun Baekhyun. Worrying. Did I completely imagine that little one night stand with your music history TA? The whole wife thing didn't worry you?” Okay, so maybe it’s Baekhyun’s job to drop kick someone this morning. “The only thing you worry about is whether or not Home Plus has your hair gel in stock. Why the sudden interest in human beings?”
Baekhyun grits his teeth. He’s really not as heartless as his roommates make him out to be, but if you were to only hear about him through the two of them, you'd think that Baekhyun is the most unfeeling, unpleasant, greasy human in inexistence. “Firstly, the guy didn't wear a wedding ring, never mentioned a wife. Nothing," he groans, tired of repeating himself. "But most importantly, this isn’t about Jongin, this is about us. If he makes a show of it, we could all be found out,” he spews, indignant. Maybe a different plan of attack can convince them.
Kyungsoo sighs like it takes all the effort in the world. “He does have a point.” The way that Chanyeol is glaring at him is anything but menacing.
“Okay, yeah. Sure. But that doesn’t change the fact that Baekhyun has become emotionally attached to the thing and he’s probably wishing he could teleport himself to Busan just to ‘keep an eye’ on it,” Chanyeol says matter-of-factly. When Kyungsoo nods again, Baekhyun barely has a chance to roll his eyes, jaw hanging and words stuck in his throat before the front door opens and a familiar voice floats through into the kitchen.
“Who’s emotionally attached to what?” Jongin quips, stepping into the room and wearing a smile like it’s the easiest thing. Do his eyes always crinkle like that when he smiles?
He spots the bag on his shoulder almost immediately and remembers when he bought it for him. It was Christmas, and despite Jongin being painfully homesick, he had to stay on campus for some dance competition. He’d also managed to sprain his ankle the week prior and became this sad little heap on Baekhyun’s couch for almost three days, refusing to move and insisting on watching hours of Pororo. At that time, Jongin mostly came over only to practise teleporting with Baekhyun so it was a terribly pitiful sight to see the young kid sprawled out and pouting on his couch for more than a day, no energy to do anything. He isn’t sure where exactly he saw it, but he ended up coming back from a grocery run with a leather satchel to replace Jongin’s ratty, old high school backpack and maybe create some semblance of Christmas.
And then he quickly shakes the memory away. It’s when he remembers things like that that it feels more like he’s known Jongin since his elementary days rather than just the past year. Now, that bag contains all his useless schoolwork Baekhyun's managed to help him with and he's leaving with it.
“Your underwear are on my bed,” he mumbles, earning looks from both Chanyeol and Kyungsoo. His heart swells a little just seeing the blush spread across Jongin’s face, and the lights conveniently flicker a nice shade of pink in response.
“Okay, let’s all control our hormones, shall we?” Kyungsoo says, making his way to the fridge again, grumbling about shopping when he looks inside. Jongin’s grown used to their teasing, but it doesn’t stop him from shuffling from one foot to the other, chewing at his thumb, turning bright red. Despite Baekhyun’s constant warnings to stay out of their way, Jongin’s somehow become another member of their group and apart from poking fun at him all the time, he fits in considerably well. It wouldn’t have been his first choise, but they’ve all helped Jongin in one way or another and that counts for more.
Baekhyun pushes himself off the counter and trails after Jongin, who’s already trudging to his room. “Wait up, I’ll help you look for your stuff.” He ignores Chanyeol’s waving hands and idiotic grin and locks arms with Jongin on their way to his room.
Busan. Two months. Not ideal, but doable.
It’s mid February, and the earth feels like a giant ice cube. Baekhyun asks Kyungsoo to melt the snow around their apartment building, but all he gets is a knee to his gut. Chanyeol nearly burns down the building with his makeshift fireplace in the living room, and Baekhyun is speed-writing a paper that’s due at seven the next morning at his and Chanyeol’s shared desk, laptop in front of him-Jongin hanging at the edge of his bed.
He’s been there since he finished class at four and Baekhyun’s pretty sure he’s been playing Candy Crush on his phone for the past two hours. He’d wanted to practise teleporting from the apartment to his dorm for the fourth time that week, but Baekhyun informed him that he had to write his paper, although he was welcome to stick around. And stick around he did.
Jongin finally loses his often nonexistent patience and props himself up on his hands, cradling his chin in them, and begins to pout. “Hyung." Typing. Rustling papers. "Hyung.”
“What?” Baekhyun manages through clenched teeth. Music history really isn’t his best subject and this paper just might be the death of him.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asks quietly, stretching out across the bed and strangely resembling a cat.
It goes without saying that Jongin is a welcome presence on days like this, even though anyone else would probably make Baekhyun want to tear his hair out from his scalp. Something about Jongin’s soft voice, his easy way of talking Baekhyun into anything-it’s refreshing. Sometimes he forgets that he’s the same kid that tried to push him away outside that gelato place that he and Chanyeol went to after the dance recital back in September. They ran into each other coincidentally, but after what happened in the practise room, this just conveniently sped things up. Baekhyun remembers making a terrible joke about Jongin not calling back after such a great night, watching gleefully as Sehun’s jaw dropped beside him and Jongin’s ears turned pink. Sure, he finally got Jongin to agree to meet up to discuss the whole teleportation thing, but it took some effort and a lot of horrible jokes on his part. All of which Jongin laughed at. That had to be a record for any one person in Baekhyun’s book.
Baekhyun laughs softly, stretches his own arms up over his head and across his chest as he cranes his head around to catch a glimpse of Jongin trying to suppress a yawn. It’s almost midnight, and even though he’d told Jongin that he could go home hours ago, he’s still here. “You could zap yourself to the nearest convenient store and grab me all the energy drinks they have,” he muses, grinning when Jongin looks up at him and smiles. In the blink of an eye, Jongin appears in a little cloud of separating dust only inches away from him and giggles when Baekhyun shouts in his dialect, releasing a steady stream of curses.
“You just need to loosen up,” Jongin mutters through upturned lips. Baekhyun reaches out to take a swing at him.
“What did I tell you about doing that?” he snaps. “One of these days I’m going to drop dead from a heart attack!” Jongin just keeps laughing as he reaches out and digs his hands into Baekhyun’s shoulders, giving him a much-needed massage. So this is why Baekhyun keeps Jongin around.
“I thought you’d be proud of me,” Jongin says, turning Baekhyun’s head around with his left hand so he can focus on his paper again. His heart is still beating a thousand miles a minute and the AC is on too high for this time of year. Jongin’s fingers feel like heaven as they work through the knots along his spine and he vaguely wonders if he’ll ever finish his paper.
“Red Bull would be more effective,” Baekhyun mutters. “At this rate, I’m going to fall asleep.” He sighs as Jongin hits a particularly tight muscle.
“Weren’t you the one that told me how bad that stuff is for you?” he challenges, leaning in. Unless he’s imagining it in his overly exhausted state (a sure possibility), he’s almost sure that Jongin’s smelling his hair. “Something about how caffeine and alcohol making our powers harder to control?”
Baekhyun groans. “That really only applies to you. I’ve been at this for much longer than you have. You need to focus on getting through school without all the chemical energy and intoxication.” The words feel hypocritical the minute they leave his lips, and Jongin’s follow-up question only serves to prove that.
“Don’t tell me that you were such a good boy your freshman year,” Jongin says, nuzzling his chin in the dip of Baekhyun’s neck. He tries his best to pretend his breath doesn’t catch in his throat.
“A few unfortunate parties and drinks and people’s names I can’t remember,” he explains, sounding bored, “but I’m wiser now. I’m here to keep you from making those same mistakes.”
Jongin scoffs. Doesn't believe him for a second. “Red Bull, then?”
Baekhyun laughs, starts to respond, but his eyes go wide as he registers the words and turns to look at Jongin. The moment he does, there’s no one to look at. He’s disappeared, leaving with the smallest sound in his wake to signify his absence. Baekhyun nearly uproots his chair when he stands, fists clenched at his sides and head swimming. It was a joke, the whole energy drink thing. But when Baekhyun fishes around in his pockets, he notices that his wallet’s gone. Jongin’s definitely improved since their first few weeks of mentoring, but Baekhyun still doesn’t trust him to safely make the trip to the corner store and back without a nosebleed or a splitting headache (and he doesn't even want to think of the times Jongin's puked his guys out), even if Jongin repeatedly says It’s alright, I’m fine. It’s nothing.
With one hand curling in his hair in frustration, he paces for a few minutes just to ease the tension. He’s not sure why he’s so bent up about the idea of Jongin teleporting himself a couple blocks down, but he thinks that it might be the prospect of his work being a total waste if Jongin ends up dead.
He’s just about to pull out his phone when he’s knocked off his feet and onto the bed, a heavy weight pressing against his ribcage, making it nearly impossible to breathe. “Jongin. Jongin, off. OFF,” he manages, wheezing through tight teeth and waving his arms around to get his attention. Jongin hops right off, mumbling apologies. Nevertheless, as soon as Baekhyun sits up, he notices the plastic bag gripped in Jongin’s hand. Okay, so he’s not completely useless.
“What were you thinking?” Baekhyun says scrambling to his feet and grabbing Jongin by the chin. He looks him up and down, searching for a single sign that says this is just as dangerous as Baekhyun keeps reminding him it is. When he doesn’t see anything, the hand drops. "You know how stupid that was, right?"
Jongin just nods sheepishly.
"And you know that weather can have an effect in your abilities, right?"
Another tiny nod. If he had any sleep and a praiseworthy essay under his belt, he might laugh. He sighs instead.
"At least you got the right thing," he grumbles, reaching into the bag and pulling out a six pack of Red Bull. He proceeds to wrap a steady arm around Jongin's shoulder and pulls him in close. "Now help me finish these off before Chanyeol finds them. We've got a paper to write."
Jongin doesn't say much else, just grins so wide that the ends of his mouth touch his ears as he pulls up a chair next to Baekhyun. Baekhyun's not sure when it happened, but he's happy to be anywhere that Baekhyun is.
"He's almost like your own little tamagotchi," Chanyeol chides the next day. "Sticks to you, always taking care of him."
Baekhyun finished the paper sometime around 6, Jongin crashed on the floor with the cans littered around him like a funeral pyre. He's barely awake right now and whatever Chanyeol is saying is hardly registering.
"A what?"
"You know, a tamagotchi. Those little…?" Chanyeol clues in on Baekhyun's confused expression and frowns. "You seriously can't tell me you've never had one. Come on, Baek, did you live under a rock your whole life?"
"No, but I would've liked to if it meant we wouldn't be having this conversation," he replies with a yawn. "I'm going to bed. Wake me up when school's out." And with that, he heads back to his room.
Jongin's moved since he went out to the living room. He's precariously spread out across the bed, but Baekhyun just navigates carefully, yanks the covers up, and crawls in next to him, legs barely touching. Sleep takes him almost the minute that he closes his eyes and he feels like he could sleep for years.
Baekhyun is ninety-eight percent sure that he'll like Busan. Jongin just doesn't-can't agree.
"I really don't think that's a good idea, hyung," he says, voice wavering. They're headed up the block in sweats, dying in the cruel humidity of the hot, summer Seoul day.
After stuffing his bag full with underwear, socks, and forking over Jongin's Harry Potter DVD box set and headphones (Baekhyun's got singed, courtesy of Chanyeol's genius idea to cook), Chanyeol bear hugged him, Kyungsoo told him to wash his balls, and Baekhyun decided to walk to Jongin back to his dorm. Like a gentleman would, of course. But mostly to-
"Come on! It'd be fun," Baekhyun whines. Jongin's expression sours at the mention of 'fun', but he can't blame him. Every time he's used the word, it involves some sort of club bouncing, unnecessary rounds of noraebang, or more 'power practise', as he calls it. None of which Jongin is allowed to drink at. "Your parents would love having a natural born comedian stay over and I'm a hit with the ladies."
"My sisters don't live there anymore."
Baekhyun grins and wags his brow, throwing an arm around Jongin's shoulder. "Good. We won't have to be as quiet, then." Jongin's face scrunches up, trying his best not to laugh.
"Is this your method of persuasion?" he asks, mock astonishment dripping from his voice. Baekhyun smacks him on the back and continues pushing him along, intent on getting his point across. With a little luck and a lot of groveling, Baekhyun thinks he can swing it.
"Yeah, obviously."
"I'm not convinced."
Hands outstretched, he pushes his index finger and thumb together, shoving the gesture in Jongin's face. "Not even this much?" he asks, concerned. Jongin's jaw tightens, and he can see the cogs turning in his head when it does, but he shakes his head anyway.
"I can't believe you're really trying to get me to bring you to my parents' house," he huffs out, using the back of his hand to clear the sweat from his forehead. "What gives, Baekhyun? You of all people-cooped up in a stranger's house for that long? Did Kyungsoo finally kick you out?"
Baekhyun weavles his arm in with Jongin's and presses himself against him for effect. It's too damn hot for this sort of thing, but he reminds himself it's all part of the act. "For your information, I do more laundry than Kyungsoo and Chanyeol combined. Kyungsoo's just picky about me washing my underwear with his 'after where I've been'," he recites, complete with air quotes. "Whatever that means. But… this surprisingly isn't about that."
Jongin's quite clearly looking at him from the corner of his eyes, and his face hasn't really changed. He looks confused and undeniably suspicious. "Then what's this about? You're not just looking for a vacation."
Baekhyun waits a moment, then shakes his head. They're almost back to his dorm and Baekhyun hasn't even explained himself yet. Let alone sealed the deal. When is Jongin leaving, he wonders.
"Well, if you really must know," he drawls, trying for suspense, "it's mostly for my own benefit. Of course." Jongin frowns. He continues anyway. "You suck at this whole teleporting thing and if you don't have someone to babysit you, who's to say you won't whip around Korea, end up in Pyeongyang on the border and get taken in by the North Korean government as a secret agent or something because of your unique powers?" Baekhyun paints it out with his hands like some elaborate headline of a newspaper.
"I don't think that's how that works, hyung," he says as they near his door, keys jingling as they come out of Jongin's pocket.
Baekhyun scoffs. "No shit, Sherlock. I'm just saying I can't have you screwing this up for me. Or Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, for that matter. And I know you haven't met them, but Luhan and Yixing, too. Someone's gotta make sure you don't blow your cover to your parents, or your entire neighbourhood. Or slice yourself in half, or get food poisoning or-"
"Slice myself in half?" Jongin cuts in, shaking Baekhyun off so he can unlock the door. "So basically you think I'm just gonna fuck everything up while I'm away. You're really not convincing me at all." If he's really observant, he can hear the tinge of anger in Jongin's voice, but he stays pretty calm otherwise. He unlocks the door and Baekhyun steps in first, taking in the view of stacked boxes. He can't believe that it's already been nine months-and now Jongin's leaving in a few hours.
"It's one of my best ideas. I don't see what the problem is," Baekhyun pouts, jutting out his lower lip as he turns away from the boxes to face Jongin.
When he refuses to answer his whiny pleas and just walks on to finish packing, Baekhyun fills in the silence. "You can put me on a leash, if that helps." Nothing. "I'm into that sort of thing."
"Baekhyun. I can't-" he says firmly, pausing to think as he heads for his room, box in hand. "I can't bring some guy home and expect my parents to be okay with it."
"You say it like it's a big deal. I'm not your boyfriend."
Jongin physically twitches at the mention of it. Frankly, it comes out a lot more spiteful than he means it to be, and it's obvious from the way it stings his throat on its way out. This conversation isn't going quite the way he'd planned it in his head. "No… But I can't, Baekhyun." And it sounds final.
Baekhyun catches his eyes for a moment, lingering, looking hard and a little confused. He almost feels bad for springing the idea on him-for imposing on the Kim family, but his stomach tightens at the thought of Jongin being on his own with his new, unharnessed abilities for that long. And maybe, if he digs deep, it's something more than that. He'll miss him, sure, the kid with wild bed head and a taste for late night rounds of Call of Duty, but he's become such an integral part of Baekhyun's everyday life that it seems somewhat wrong to see him off like any other classmate. This is Jongin. He’s not sure why it’s different, but that niggling feeling his chest won’t go away.
"I promise not to blow anything up, okay?" Jongin finally says after a stretch of silence. The corners of Baekhyun's lips curl up slightly.
"That's more Chanyeol's area of expertise, anyway.”
And that’s how the conversation ends. Baekhyun helps load up boxes, eats through the last of Jongin’s energy bars, and clears out Sehun’s hidden condom supply underneath Jongin’s sheets. By the time he gets the chance to check his phone, it’s well into the afternoon and Jongin’s ride will be here any minute. Jongin’s made the joke numerous times over the past couple days about transporting himself home, but Baekhyun refuses to acknowledge a single word of it. Frankly, he likes the Jongin with two arms, two legs, a head. It's just a big ‘I told you so’, waiting to happen.
Jongin takes the effort that Baekhyun won't and pulls him into a half hug when he's on his way out. He only talks to Jongin's parents for a few short minutes while hauling boxes into the back of the car and they're easily some of the most uncomfortable moments of his life. Jongin's dad wants to talk about the dream fulfillment he isn't achieving through his son's impending dance career, and his mother is too friendly-even if Baekhyun really does want to come visit for dinner sometime as thanks for taking care of 'her Jonginnie'. He barely reciprocates the gesture when Jongin jumps in the back seat and gives him his most charmingly dopey smile, handing waving wildly as they pull out.
And that's that. Gone for the summer, and an empty time slot for another person to inadequately fill in Baekhyun's schedule.
"You can always sleep in my bed, if you're feeling lonely," Chanyeol says that night to Baekhyun in the bathroom while he's brushing his teeth.
"I'd literally rather set myself on fire, thank you,” comes the muffled reply as he shakes his toothbrush at him.
When he falls into bed that night, it’s hard to think about anything else other than the fact that his room is missing a familiar warm body and will be for the remainder of the summer. He shoves the comforter between his legs, feet sticking out to avoid excessive sweating and face smashed into the pillow. Counting sheep has never worked before, and it would seem that tonight isn’t any different.
The first week is, according to Chanyeol, brutal.
“Would it be possible for you to leave the lights on? Don’t need to be welcomed by a fuckin’ strobe light party every time I walk in the room,” he huffs when he enters the kitchen, Baekhyun pooled on the table in a pathetic heap and bored out of his mind. “Dude. Just call him. Text him. Something.” Baekhyun just eyes him, apathetic.
“This isn’t about Jongin. I’m just bored. It’s a weekend and instead going and getting laid like I should be, I’m here.” He stretches out two fingers into a makeshift gun and aims right at the temple.
“Now whose fault is that?”
“Piss off.” There isn’t much of a bite in his tone.
Chanyeol gives up on trying to look for something to eat and slides into the seat across from Baekhyun. “I thought you applied for a few jobs. Vocal lessons or something? Escort? Can’t remember,” he says, reaching out to knock Baekhyun’s arms out from under his chin so his head flies toward the tabletop. Baekhyun swats at him. “Heard back from any of ‘em?”
“No. I guess I can always try Mr. Kwon about that assistant position. If I’m desperate.” Chanyeol almost ignores the distant lull of his voice, the detachment from everything that’s reality. Kyungsoo has a job, a pretty nice one in fact, and he’s hoping he can go a little longer by mooching off Kyungsoo’s salary from seven straight hours of whatever the hell it is he does.
Chanyeol rolls his eyes. “Certainly seems like you are. Could you be more transparent?” Baekhyun tries swinging at him again, missing when Chanyeol leans back with ease.
“You’re one to talk,” he says, eyes darting toward Kyungsoo’s room. And Chanyeol drops it, just like that. He’s been more of a couch potato than ever in the past week, and he refuses to trace it back to anything Jongin. When he heads to one of the chorale rooms to practise that evening, he cuts short the smile that’s curling on his lips when he remembers Jongin crashing into that very same piano, dazed and confused.
Baekhyun doesn’t even bother telling Chanyeol and Kyungsoo about his spur-of-the-moment expense on a bus ticket to Busan. And while he should feel guilty for up and leaving (as well as crashing at someone's house for who knows how long), the only thing he feels is the thrill of doing something on a whim. Not to mention the hope that the two bottles of cheap wine he grabbed will be a sufficient enough apology on both ends.
It’s times likes these that he wishes he could teleport like Jongin. That would make this a lot easier than crawling on some cramped, stuffy bus with one bag overhead and the other stuffed in his lap. The man next to him smells like a sewer and he’s almost positive the old lady a few seats away is undressing him with her eyes. He can drive, but he thinks it’s a bit much to snatch Kyungsoo’s car away for his getaway. He’s pretty sure that making himself scarce during his week to clean the kitchen is already punishment enough for them.
He falls asleep against the window, nearly misses one of his transfers, and falls asleep again on the last bus. If he even lets himself think for a moment about whether or not this makes his Stupidest Decisions list, he shakes the thought away with the phantom warmth of Jongin’s fingers on his neck.
this story is continued. part ii
Rating: [nc17]
Side pairing/s: slight, implied chansoo
Length: 15,610 words
Summary: mama powers!au; all it takes is a year and an impromptu summer trip for baekhyun to figure out that he's crazy about him.
Warning/s: sex, swearing
Notes: i apologise greatly for this mess of a fic, what with its added au and complete destruction of the prompt. thanks to my lovely beta, astrid, for helping me in my times of great need ;;
Baekhyun was never good at voicing his feelings.
Jongin breaks the news to him on a Sunday afternoon after a morning of sleeping in, catching the last half of the game while waiting for pizza to come, and an impromptu massage from Jongin as his third congratulations that week for surviving another year. He hadn’t planned to stay to night-or rather, the entire weekend-but it’s hardly a blip in his routine these days. Baekhyun never plans it, really. Sure, it’s usually Jongin that’s over at his place, (mostly because one of his roommates, Kyungsoo, cooks a better galbi jiggae than anyone and everyone’s mom) and week after week it’s typically Baekhyun’s couch that’s getting slept on. They broke their near semester-long record over finals week last week, but Baekhyun blames it on the bedhead and fangs that accompanied those three all nighters in a row and two gallons of coffee.
“Hyung?” Jongin murmurs, fingers threaded deep in the knots in Baekhyun’s right shoulder. He merely groans in return.
When several unanswered seconds of silence pass by with Jongin’s hands suddenly digging in like hammers, Baekhyun twists his head around to see Jongin’s face contorted in confusion. “What is it? Something wrong? Ah-hey,” he says after a particularly forceful jab just beneath his shoulder blade. He’s clearly not paying enough attention to be the most meticulous masseuse. Jongin shakes his head and looks at the TV like there’s something to see. Shifts a bit, takes a deep breath.
“Nothing, I was just…” he pauses, seemingly taken by the floating dust illuminated by the light coming in from the open window. “Hyung, where are you going? For the summer break?”
And then a switch flips (literally, too, because Baekhyun's busy thoughts occasionally translate into an overhead light buzzing to life). Jongin's worried. Knowing Jongin, he's probably been worried, fretting over the question and the answer for weeks. Baekhyun's spent the better part of his free time with Jongin over the past year-Jongin's freshman year-trying to help him get a hold on the whole teleportation thing, and it doesn't hit him until right then how much time they've really been glued to each other.
Baekhyun shakes Jongin's hands off before his muscles can get assaulted again. "Probably just sticking around, since I've got the apartment and all. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, too. I mean, what's the point of going home when I have a personal chef and the freedom to play League past midnight?" Jongin cracks a smile at that.
"Don't you want to see your family?" he asks, moving to twist his arms around the nearest pillow, hugging it close. Baekhyun acts like he's thinking, puts in the extra effort to crease his brow and put a finger to his mouth like he's really weighing his options. He shakes his head.
"I'll be a senior next year. Trust me, you'll get to that point when you don't feel like going home. You'll realise how annoying they really are," he says easily, pushing himself out of Jongin's lap to stretch.
Jongin waits a moment before nodding slowly in reply. The way his face is twisting right now-it’s like he’s looking for someone’s permission. Someone to tell him if it’s okay to keep talking. "Well, I'm going home for the holiday. Back to Busan to see my parents," he mumbles.
Oh.
He's not sure why he assumed anything different, especially since Jongin's in the dorms and freshly nineteen, but Baekhyun grinds his teeth anyway and wonders what he's supposed to do after he gets a job and gets off of work. No Jongin, just Chanyeol and Kyungsoo. It shouldn't bother him as much as it does, but he's suddenly trying very hard not to think about the prospect of not spending every other afternoon in one place or another, trying to get Jongin to transport himself without a single nosebleed or passing out. It's become his routine, and for a lack of a better way to explain it, he doesn’t like upsetting his routine.
"That's a little…far." It's all he says. All he can say.
Jongin lies across the couch and continues to press the pillow to his chest, now staring directly at Baekhyun. "Well, it's not like you can't visit me. Or maybe I can visit you. It's just a few months." And even Jongin doesn't sound so sure of himself.
"Are you sure that's a good idea? Two whole months away from…us?" He almost says 'me'-himself-but Chanyeol is right there in the back of his mind, setting something on fire as he rambles about taking some of the credit. Jongin cocks an eyebrow.
"Why wouldn't it be?"
"I don't know, let's ask Sehun's dick," Baekhyun says, then quickly whips around just be sure that Jongin's roommate isn't around.
Jongin shoves the pillow in Baekhyun's direction and catches him off guard, nearly sending him of the couch entirely. "Oh come on, that was one time! It's not like I wanted to zap myself into his bed while he had a girl over. In fact, I've been trying my hardest to forget, thank you." Baekhyun grins, pushing the pillow back in Jongin's direction.
"And your poor dance teacher?"
"At least I didn't see him naked. That was just awkward," he defends lamely, suppressing a smile.
"Okay, but you've phased a couple of times in public. How would your parents feel about you disappearing at the dinner table in the middle of some story about how amazing I am?”
Jongin sits straight up, glaring at him. “You think I’m gonna talk about you to my parents?” he scoffs with a haughty expression to match. Baekhyun nuzzles up against Jongin’s leg. It’s a pretty teasing gesture, considering he would rarely do it under any other circumstance, but he still catches the little curl of Jongin’s lips before he snuggles in closer and shuts his eyes. Jongin’s just one big softie that way. A little skinship and he caves. Not that he’s bragging.
“Of course. Everyone talks about me. You probably won’t even be able to resist introducing me to them. And your sisters.” It's quiet for a little too long, so Baekhyun perks up and sees him staring. He's been doing that lately-just staring at him with this faint smile and crows feet. Honestly, it's beginning to worry him.
As is this trip, actually. Two months away from the only people who have a fraction of understanding what it means when Jongin’s talking one moment and gone the next. He’s staged at least two power outages more than his usual yearly quota, but if Jongin is holed up at his parents in Busan he won’t be able to do a single thing if he screws anything up. He shouldn’t be so anxious about the very idea of it, yet here he is, heart hammering in his chest at the thought.
“Maybe you should stay,” he says, hoping for it come off casual, but he’s sure he must sound desperate. “You could always go up for a weekend or something, but. You know. Come back and stay with us.” He can feel Jongin shifting uncomfortably again.
“Hyung…” he starts, but he doesn’t get a chance to finish. Not before Sehun is bursting into the room, in all his loud mouthed glory. Baekhyun hears something out of his mouth about whether or not the couch is still a safe place to sit, but Jongin’s on him and throwing punches before he even has a chance to respond. He would normally say something witty to put Sehun in his place, but his head’s a mess of thoughts and not the comically inspired kind.
A year with Jongin, fighting through his ups and downs as he tried to navigate his abilities. Luckily the dance program had kept him around for winter break, but Baekhyun hadn’t even considered the complications that might’ve come if he’d left for even just those couple of weeks. Now weeks are turned to months and he’s almost positive that if Jongin isn’t right next to him for every second of it, something’s bound to happen. But when he eyes Jongin from across the room, whose arms have Sehun wrapped tightly in a headlock, he receives a smile. It doesn’t ease his concerns, but his makes his stomach flip just a little. And all of it should really worry him, but it doesn’t. Not right now.
Busan. Two months. Not ideal, but doable. When Baekhyun leaves Jongin’s dorm that night, almost forgets to say goodnight.
Looking back, Baekhyun thinks that his first meeting with Jongin might’ve still happened regardless-fate, he might even call it-although delayed by a month or so. Stuffed in the farthest seats away from the stage of some school dance recital that Chanyeol’d insisted on seeing as a favour to the director whom he’d incidentally set fire to only a week prior (despite his utter distaste for the very idea), he'd found himself looking straight at him-Kim Jongin.
Chanyeol had tried to convince him earlier that morning that it’d been ‘a slip of the fingers’-what happened to the director-but Baekhyun knows better than to count on Chanyeol’s self control on less than three hours of sleep and thanked God that the poor guy was still under the impression that Chanyeol had curiously ignited him with a matchstick he’d thought was a toothpick (and not his own finger). And between mulling over Chanyeol’s innate gift for alibis and his sheer stupidity for trying to function properly, being so exhausted, his eyes sort of find their way to settling on that one kid-front and center stage for a majority of the performance and far more interesting a case than his brainless roommate’s sleep-deprived fuck ups.
However, that’s not the first time he sees him, all crows feet and perfectly tanned skin, sanity ranging from smiles to panic to excessive bowing and stuttering. No-in fact, it’s Baekhyun’s third late night in the practice rooms, head pulsing from all the high notes and body swaying like he’s on the verge of passing out. Sleep isn't an option with a recital of his own only a few weeks away. Not yet, at least. He's barely managed to jump the high note in this piece when Jongin comes crashing in, landing gracefully against the ivory keys of the grand in the corner.
It only takes a moment for him to recover, standing up slowly with music in hand and brushing off his only clean pair of jeans as he looks up at a boy younger than him by maybe a few years. He looks severely startled, leaning against the door of the practice room for support, chest heaving and mouth gaping like a fish out of water. Magic tricks aren’t really Baekhyun’s thing, so when some kid randomly materalises in front of him like a rabbit out of the depths of a top hat, he decides almost instantly that there’re only a few logical explanations. Only one of which he really, seriously considers.
“So how long have you known?” Baekhyun’s voice cuts through the moments of silence that follow. He couldn’t sound more bored if he tried.
The kid’s head shoots up, eyes wide and utterly astounded by the fact that there could possibly be another human being in the room. It should be Baekhyun’s first inclination to welcome him, maybe even ask about his well-being and sympathise with him, but he also vaguely recalls getting Chanyeol a World’s Best Girlfriend mug for his birthday. Chanyeol had called it poor judgement; he calls it spontaneity. With a whole lot of straightforwardness.
“Huh…?”
“About your abilities?” he suggests lightly. “Gift? Power? No?” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, cards a hand through already messy hair and shuffles forward, a visible glint in his eye. It’s not that obvious, apparently.
“I don’t-uh. Who are you? Wait-where am I? No-”
Baekhyun makes a show of it after realising what he’s dealing with, picking the limp figure off the piano and interrogating him as he drapes him over one shoulder. “Don’t tell me this is your first time,” he says to the nameless intruder, a mischievous glint in his eyes as he sends a quick glance in his direction. “You certainly crash landed like a pro. Never met a teleporter before, but I’d imagined they’d be a little smoother," he says, jabbing a finger into the kid's side and grinning as he flinches. "You got a name?”
Baekhyun smiles when Jongin stumbles uselessly over his words-Don’t know what you’re talking about, Baekhyun hears him say. "Jongin. Kim Jongin." And then he's screaming like an adolescent girl. It's clear that talking this out will be counterproductive, so Baekhyun flicks his wrist at the ceiling and watches as a stuttering light show sets off over their heads.
So, with arms outstretched and a particularly frustrated moan stuck in his throat, he surges forward and seals the deal, grabs a hold of Jongin’s arm, and feels a jolt go through both of them like an electric shock. If he's learned anything in college, it's that a little bit of stress is always an effective kick starter.
That’s how it starts. The same fizzling pop that was heard when Jongin first came crashing into that practice room, the way that the air practically tears itself apart to make room for something that shouldn’t be there. Jongin fades in and out, switches back and forth between transparency and solidity and is completely unconscious as they land feet first in the middle of what he assumes is Jongin’s dorm. After a few minutes of making sure his limbs are all in the right place and gathering his thoughts, he brushes past what he believes to be Jongin’s roommate (Sehun, he unfortunately finds out only days later) who nearly chokes on his own tongue trying to sort out the near corpse on the bed, but doesn’t even try to say anything when Baekhyun hands him a small scrap of paper with his name and number on it.
“Tell him to give me a call when he wakes up. He’s gonna need someone to talk to,” he says calmly.
He barely gets to enjoy the priceless expression on Sehun’s face. He’s out the door in a few seconds and already has Chanyeol on the phone by the time he’s in the hall.
“It’s like squeezing your brain through a tube,” he gushes as he stalks down the hall, heading home and moving his fingers between the keys in his pocket. “I mean, don’t get me wrong-it’s cool-but I can’t imagine turning myself to mush and ending up with a killer headache every time I wanted to zap myself somewhere. And this kid still doesn’t even believe that’s what’s happening-the teleportation. It took a little encouragement from me to get him to even reproduce it.”
There’s a light cough of laughter over the speaker. “Please tell me you didn’t blind him by accident. I still feel bad for Jongdae.”
“No, you idiot. And that was temporary. More like an electric current sort of thing. It was…shocking,” Baekhyun scoffs, pitching his voice low as a couple walks by and sends him a look. He can hear Chanyeol groaning on the other end. “But what’s most important here is that he’s clueless and in denial.”
He can practically hear Chanyeol’s eyeballs rolling in their sockets. “How else did he explain the fact that one minute he was in your room and the next, back at his dorm?”
“Well, he couldn’t. Not really.”
“What do you mean?” Baekhyun grins, even though Chanyeol can’t see it. It’s probably clear enough in his voice.
“Passed out on the way back. Couldn’t even keep his eyes open for the first few seconds. I had to practically throw him back onto his bed before getting the hell out of there and avoiding his dumbfounded roommate,” he says. What happened with Kyungsoo and Luhan last year seems like ages ago to Baekhyun, and without breathing a word of it Chanyeol who will inevitable mock him for his seemingly hidden, charitable nature, Baekhyun makes a mental note to make Jongin his new project. A teleporter is something shiny-something new. He’s not about to pass up a chance like this.
So without further touching on the subject, he rambles on to Chanyeol about budgeting, arguing shortly about the importance of his online drama membership versus filling up on something other than instant rice, and hangs up just before walking into their dorm.
“No, I’m keeping the Batman underwear,” Baekhyun says sleepily over the phone, Wednesday morning. If it weren’t for the Girls’ Generation ringtone blasting off to his right, he’s pretty sure he’d still be asleep. He’s almost surprised that Jongin isn’t still asleep until he remembers what day it is. Rows of packed boxes and one trip to his apartment already, it’s the day that Jongin up and leaves him for two solid months. It’s the day that he goes home to his unassuming family and likely upends all of their hard work over the past nine months by teleporting himself into the neighbour’s shower. Or something like that.
Jongin has a surprising amount of shit laying around Baekhyun’s apartment. Or rather, had. He’s retrieved most of it in these last two days of packing, but here he is on the phone with him at seven in the morning, listening to him go on about missing socks, a sweatshirt, and apparently a pair of underwear.
“If we as much said we were moving out, he would probably have his stuff moved in here the same night. I mean, he practically lives here anyway,” Chanyeol had said sometime back in March. Baekhyun had aimed for his head when he’d thrown the pillow from the couch, but he’d managed to hit Kyungsoo square in the face instead. After a brutal session of near suffocation, Kyungsoo had even agreed. Jongin was commonplace in their apartment now, and between studying for music theory exams and sticking around while Jongin practised for recitals and going back home together, there was hardly room for argument.
“I’ll be over in a bit, ‘kay?” he hears his gruff morning voice say over the receiver, and Baekhyun just groans in reply, hanging up soon after.
When he makes his way to the kitchen to whip up some coffee, Chanyeol is already situated at the table, phone in hand and grinning at the screen. He looks up just in time to see Baekhyun glaring at him. “You’re up early,” Baekhyun mutters, pulling down a mug from one of the cupboards.
“As are you, princess,” he says, setting his phone down and mindlessly drawing flaming patterns in the air. Showoff. Baekhyun can’t really complain though; he’s probably just as bad as Chanyeol on a good day. The difference is that Chanyeol’s messing around usually ends in charred household items and first degree burns. An utter disaster.
Baekhyun lifts his arms over his head, stretching. “Yeah, well, Jongin decided to give me a nice wakeup call,” he explains, switching on the coffee maker. There’s a pregnant pause. He breathes in. “He’s leaving today.” Even out of the corner of his eye, he can see Chanyeol’s expression twisting into something critical, something scrutinising.
“Having a little separation anxiety, are we?” Baekhyun just rolls his eyes in reply. Sure, he’s endured years of this, but for some reason, he’s not having any of it today.
“Hardly. I’m glad to get the kid out of my hair. I’ll finally be able to eat the food that I buy,” he retorts. It’s not a complete lie; Jongin’s always been somewhat of an expert at eating his entire food supply. It’s because I’m a growing boy, he would defend, followed by a friendly swing at his shoulder from Baekhyun. That’s one thing he certainly won’t miss. He hears Chanyeol stifle a laugh behind him.
“Yeah, you sound really thrilled about it,” he says, voice laced with skepticism. “He’s not that far. We could always visit.” It sounds like Chanyeol’s sad attempt at comforting, but Baekhyun chooses to ignore it. He’s not stupid; he knows what he’s getting at.
“He can visit us,” Baekhyun supplies, taking a sip of his bitter drink. Coffee never really was his thing. “He’s the one that can zap himself from one coordinate to the next. If he wants to see us, he can teleport. I don’t trust him not to end up in the Dean’s office, but…” He takes another sip. Feels almost as bitter as this cup of espresso. Chanyeol’s eyes are on him again-he can practically feel him staring-but he once again ignores it. So, he’s being a little transparent. Not like Chanyeol isn’t; especially when it comes to Kyungsoo even if no one likes to say it out loud.
Chanyeol moves toward the counter and puts his own mug in the sink, leaning back against the counter. Smirks. “Whatever. I mean, you two are just friends. And you only met last year-has it really been a whole school year already? Wow… Anyway, it won’t kill you to be apart for a summer,” Chanyeol says, folding his arms. If he believed in that sort of thing, he might think Chanyeol is twisting the knife right now. Baekhyun lets out an audible sigh and shoots his roommate a look. He can feel himself caving a little to Chanyeol’s poor attempt at reverse psychology, and he hates himself for it.
“Let’s face it: he still has no idea what he’s doing. He’s probably gonna phase in front of his parents or some stranger and then get shipped off to some insane asylum-” he starts, running a hand through his hair.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s the problem? You’re worried about Jongin losing control of his powers?” Chanyeol promptly interrupts. Baekhyun waits out the silence, starts to open his mouth to refute it, but Chanyeol cuts him off again. “I mean, which of us is really ever sure of we’re doing? We’ve gotten a little better at handling it over the years, but Jongin’s not much different from us in terms of figuring out the whole supernatural abilities thing.”
Baekhyun shifts so he can look Chanyeol square in the eyes. “Yeah, but we’ve got time on our side. Jongin’s still so new at it. If he’s away from us for that long, who knows what could go wrong. Do you know what Yixing said about teleporters? What can happen to some of them?”
Chanyeol scoffs and straightens out. “As if he’s an expert.” Baekhyun nearly slams his cup down, but he catches himself and sets it down carefully, taking a deep breath.
“Not the point. He said that if Jongin’s not careful-if he doesn’t concentrate well enough, parts of him could get left behind. Limbs, Chanyeol. Sliced right through the wormhole. Leave it to a young, dumb kid like Jongin to do something like that. Get so cocky about his abilities that he just sends one half of himself across the ocean and the other half is stuck in his room somewhere. He hasn’t even practised going as far as Busan to Seoul. He’d probably pass out and lose a leg,” Baekhyun says, voice rising in volume. He hadn’t noticed that he was getting so loud, but Kyungsoo is at the door to attest to it.
“Someone wanna explain why I’ve been woken up at 7:30AM?” he growls from the doorframe, shoving his way past them to get at the fridge. Chanyeol obliges.
“Baekhyun is deathly afraid that Jongin is gonna murder himself over the break,” he offers. Kyungsoo shrugs like it’s a plausible explanation, but Baekhyun is ready to fight everyone on it before a single word gets out.
“Thanks for twisting my words, dickhead. I said,” Baekhyun spits, “that Jongin isn’t very experienced when it comes to teleporting and he’s bound to get himself into trouble. Let’s not forget the earthquake of your freshman year.” Baekhyun nods in Kyungsoo’s direction and watches him smile fondly at the memory. “And Chanyeol, it was just a couple of months ago that you set Jongin’s dance teacher on fucking fire.”
Chanyeol considers it for a moment and then shrugs. “Yeah, but doesn’t that just prove my point?” Kyungsoo pushes past them again as he heads for the table.
“And what’s your point?” Kyungsoo asks, bored. Like he’s the mediator. The coffee doesn’t seem to be helping anyone. Chanyeol just shoots a sly smile in Baekhyun’s direction and slides into the seat next to Kyungsoo.
“That this could happen to any one of us, at any time. Time is irrelevant if you’re not concentrating. Baek’s worrying too much.” Kyungsoo nods, once again accepting Chanyeol’s words as if they’re fact. God, it really must be too early. Kyungsoo would’ve normally drop kicked the both of them by now. Had a little common sense, too.
“This is a little unsettling, actually,” Kyungsoo mumbles around the rim of his mug. “Byun Baekhyun. Worrying. Did I completely imagine that little one night stand with your music history TA? The whole wife thing didn't worry you?” Okay, so maybe it’s Baekhyun’s job to drop kick someone this morning. “The only thing you worry about is whether or not Home Plus has your hair gel in stock. Why the sudden interest in human beings?”
Baekhyun grits his teeth. He’s really not as heartless as his roommates make him out to be, but if you were to only hear about him through the two of them, you'd think that Baekhyun is the most unfeeling, unpleasant, greasy human in inexistence. “Firstly, the guy didn't wear a wedding ring, never mentioned a wife. Nothing," he groans, tired of repeating himself. "But most importantly, this isn’t about Jongin, this is about us. If he makes a show of it, we could all be found out,” he spews, indignant. Maybe a different plan of attack can convince them.
Kyungsoo sighs like it takes all the effort in the world. “He does have a point.” The way that Chanyeol is glaring at him is anything but menacing.
“Okay, yeah. Sure. But that doesn’t change the fact that Baekhyun has become emotionally attached to the thing and he’s probably wishing he could teleport himself to Busan just to ‘keep an eye’ on it,” Chanyeol says matter-of-factly. When Kyungsoo nods again, Baekhyun barely has a chance to roll his eyes, jaw hanging and words stuck in his throat before the front door opens and a familiar voice floats through into the kitchen.
“Who’s emotionally attached to what?” Jongin quips, stepping into the room and wearing a smile like it’s the easiest thing. Do his eyes always crinkle like that when he smiles?
He spots the bag on his shoulder almost immediately and remembers when he bought it for him. It was Christmas, and despite Jongin being painfully homesick, he had to stay on campus for some dance competition. He’d also managed to sprain his ankle the week prior and became this sad little heap on Baekhyun’s couch for almost three days, refusing to move and insisting on watching hours of Pororo. At that time, Jongin mostly came over only to practise teleporting with Baekhyun so it was a terribly pitiful sight to see the young kid sprawled out and pouting on his couch for more than a day, no energy to do anything. He isn’t sure where exactly he saw it, but he ended up coming back from a grocery run with a leather satchel to replace Jongin’s ratty, old high school backpack and maybe create some semblance of Christmas.
And then he quickly shakes the memory away. It’s when he remembers things like that that it feels more like he’s known Jongin since his elementary days rather than just the past year. Now, that bag contains all his useless schoolwork Baekhyun's managed to help him with and he's leaving with it.
“Your underwear are on my bed,” he mumbles, earning looks from both Chanyeol and Kyungsoo. His heart swells a little just seeing the blush spread across Jongin’s face, and the lights conveniently flicker a nice shade of pink in response.
“Okay, let’s all control our hormones, shall we?” Kyungsoo says, making his way to the fridge again, grumbling about shopping when he looks inside. Jongin’s grown used to their teasing, but it doesn’t stop him from shuffling from one foot to the other, chewing at his thumb, turning bright red. Despite Baekhyun’s constant warnings to stay out of their way, Jongin’s somehow become another member of their group and apart from poking fun at him all the time, he fits in considerably well. It wouldn’t have been his first choise, but they’ve all helped Jongin in one way or another and that counts for more.
Baekhyun pushes himself off the counter and trails after Jongin, who’s already trudging to his room. “Wait up, I’ll help you look for your stuff.” He ignores Chanyeol’s waving hands and idiotic grin and locks arms with Jongin on their way to his room.
Busan. Two months. Not ideal, but doable.
It’s mid February, and the earth feels like a giant ice cube. Baekhyun asks Kyungsoo to melt the snow around their apartment building, but all he gets is a knee to his gut. Chanyeol nearly burns down the building with his makeshift fireplace in the living room, and Baekhyun is speed-writing a paper that’s due at seven the next morning at his and Chanyeol’s shared desk, laptop in front of him-Jongin hanging at the edge of his bed.
He’s been there since he finished class at four and Baekhyun’s pretty sure he’s been playing Candy Crush on his phone for the past two hours. He’d wanted to practise teleporting from the apartment to his dorm for the fourth time that week, but Baekhyun informed him that he had to write his paper, although he was welcome to stick around. And stick around he did.
Jongin finally loses his often nonexistent patience and props himself up on his hands, cradling his chin in them, and begins to pout. “Hyung." Typing. Rustling papers. "Hyung.”
“What?” Baekhyun manages through clenched teeth. Music history really isn’t his best subject and this paper just might be the death of him.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asks quietly, stretching out across the bed and strangely resembling a cat.
It goes without saying that Jongin is a welcome presence on days like this, even though anyone else would probably make Baekhyun want to tear his hair out from his scalp. Something about Jongin’s soft voice, his easy way of talking Baekhyun into anything-it’s refreshing. Sometimes he forgets that he’s the same kid that tried to push him away outside that gelato place that he and Chanyeol went to after the dance recital back in September. They ran into each other coincidentally, but after what happened in the practise room, this just conveniently sped things up. Baekhyun remembers making a terrible joke about Jongin not calling back after such a great night, watching gleefully as Sehun’s jaw dropped beside him and Jongin’s ears turned pink. Sure, he finally got Jongin to agree to meet up to discuss the whole teleportation thing, but it took some effort and a lot of horrible jokes on his part. All of which Jongin laughed at. That had to be a record for any one person in Baekhyun’s book.
Baekhyun laughs softly, stretches his own arms up over his head and across his chest as he cranes his head around to catch a glimpse of Jongin trying to suppress a yawn. It’s almost midnight, and even though he’d told Jongin that he could go home hours ago, he’s still here. “You could zap yourself to the nearest convenient store and grab me all the energy drinks they have,” he muses, grinning when Jongin looks up at him and smiles. In the blink of an eye, Jongin appears in a little cloud of separating dust only inches away from him and giggles when Baekhyun shouts in his dialect, releasing a steady stream of curses.
“You just need to loosen up,” Jongin mutters through upturned lips. Baekhyun reaches out to take a swing at him.
“What did I tell you about doing that?” he snaps. “One of these days I’m going to drop dead from a heart attack!” Jongin just keeps laughing as he reaches out and digs his hands into Baekhyun’s shoulders, giving him a much-needed massage. So this is why Baekhyun keeps Jongin around.
“I thought you’d be proud of me,” Jongin says, turning Baekhyun’s head around with his left hand so he can focus on his paper again. His heart is still beating a thousand miles a minute and the AC is on too high for this time of year. Jongin’s fingers feel like heaven as they work through the knots along his spine and he vaguely wonders if he’ll ever finish his paper.
“Red Bull would be more effective,” Baekhyun mutters. “At this rate, I’m going to fall asleep.” He sighs as Jongin hits a particularly tight muscle.
“Weren’t you the one that told me how bad that stuff is for you?” he challenges, leaning in. Unless he’s imagining it in his overly exhausted state (a sure possibility), he’s almost sure that Jongin’s smelling his hair. “Something about how caffeine and alcohol making our powers harder to control?”
Baekhyun groans. “That really only applies to you. I’ve been at this for much longer than you have. You need to focus on getting through school without all the chemical energy and intoxication.” The words feel hypocritical the minute they leave his lips, and Jongin’s follow-up question only serves to prove that.
“Don’t tell me that you were such a good boy your freshman year,” Jongin says, nuzzling his chin in the dip of Baekhyun’s neck. He tries his best to pretend his breath doesn’t catch in his throat.
“A few unfortunate parties and drinks and people’s names I can’t remember,” he explains, sounding bored, “but I’m wiser now. I’m here to keep you from making those same mistakes.”
Jongin scoffs. Doesn't believe him for a second. “Red Bull, then?”
Baekhyun laughs, starts to respond, but his eyes go wide as he registers the words and turns to look at Jongin. The moment he does, there’s no one to look at. He’s disappeared, leaving with the smallest sound in his wake to signify his absence. Baekhyun nearly uproots his chair when he stands, fists clenched at his sides and head swimming. It was a joke, the whole energy drink thing. But when Baekhyun fishes around in his pockets, he notices that his wallet’s gone. Jongin’s definitely improved since their first few weeks of mentoring, but Baekhyun still doesn’t trust him to safely make the trip to the corner store and back without a nosebleed or a splitting headache (and he doesn't even want to think of the times Jongin's puked his guys out), even if Jongin repeatedly says It’s alright, I’m fine. It’s nothing.
With one hand curling in his hair in frustration, he paces for a few minutes just to ease the tension. He’s not sure why he’s so bent up about the idea of Jongin teleporting himself a couple blocks down, but he thinks that it might be the prospect of his work being a total waste if Jongin ends up dead.
He’s just about to pull out his phone when he’s knocked off his feet and onto the bed, a heavy weight pressing against his ribcage, making it nearly impossible to breathe. “Jongin. Jongin, off. OFF,” he manages, wheezing through tight teeth and waving his arms around to get his attention. Jongin hops right off, mumbling apologies. Nevertheless, as soon as Baekhyun sits up, he notices the plastic bag gripped in Jongin’s hand. Okay, so he’s not completely useless.
“What were you thinking?” Baekhyun says scrambling to his feet and grabbing Jongin by the chin. He looks him up and down, searching for a single sign that says this is just as dangerous as Baekhyun keeps reminding him it is. When he doesn’t see anything, the hand drops. "You know how stupid that was, right?"
Jongin just nods sheepishly.
"And you know that weather can have an effect in your abilities, right?"
Another tiny nod. If he had any sleep and a praiseworthy essay under his belt, he might laugh. He sighs instead.
"At least you got the right thing," he grumbles, reaching into the bag and pulling out a six pack of Red Bull. He proceeds to wrap a steady arm around Jongin's shoulder and pulls him in close. "Now help me finish these off before Chanyeol finds them. We've got a paper to write."
Jongin doesn't say much else, just grins so wide that the ends of his mouth touch his ears as he pulls up a chair next to Baekhyun. Baekhyun's not sure when it happened, but he's happy to be anywhere that Baekhyun is.
"He's almost like your own little tamagotchi," Chanyeol chides the next day. "Sticks to you, always taking care of him."
Baekhyun finished the paper sometime around 6, Jongin crashed on the floor with the cans littered around him like a funeral pyre. He's barely awake right now and whatever Chanyeol is saying is hardly registering.
"A what?"
"You know, a tamagotchi. Those little…?" Chanyeol clues in on Baekhyun's confused expression and frowns. "You seriously can't tell me you've never had one. Come on, Baek, did you live under a rock your whole life?"
"No, but I would've liked to if it meant we wouldn't be having this conversation," he replies with a yawn. "I'm going to bed. Wake me up when school's out." And with that, he heads back to his room.
Jongin's moved since he went out to the living room. He's precariously spread out across the bed, but Baekhyun just navigates carefully, yanks the covers up, and crawls in next to him, legs barely touching. Sleep takes him almost the minute that he closes his eyes and he feels like he could sleep for years.
Baekhyun is ninety-eight percent sure that he'll like Busan. Jongin just doesn't-can't agree.
"I really don't think that's a good idea, hyung," he says, voice wavering. They're headed up the block in sweats, dying in the cruel humidity of the hot, summer Seoul day.
After stuffing his bag full with underwear, socks, and forking over Jongin's Harry Potter DVD box set and headphones (Baekhyun's got singed, courtesy of Chanyeol's genius idea to cook), Chanyeol bear hugged him, Kyungsoo told him to wash his balls, and Baekhyun decided to walk to Jongin back to his dorm. Like a gentleman would, of course. But mostly to-
"Come on! It'd be fun," Baekhyun whines. Jongin's expression sours at the mention of 'fun', but he can't blame him. Every time he's used the word, it involves some sort of club bouncing, unnecessary rounds of noraebang, or more 'power practise', as he calls it. None of which Jongin is allowed to drink at. "Your parents would love having a natural born comedian stay over and I'm a hit with the ladies."
"My sisters don't live there anymore."
Baekhyun grins and wags his brow, throwing an arm around Jongin's shoulder. "Good. We won't have to be as quiet, then." Jongin's face scrunches up, trying his best not to laugh.
"Is this your method of persuasion?" he asks, mock astonishment dripping from his voice. Baekhyun smacks him on the back and continues pushing him along, intent on getting his point across. With a little luck and a lot of groveling, Baekhyun thinks he can swing it.
"Yeah, obviously."
"I'm not convinced."
Hands outstretched, he pushes his index finger and thumb together, shoving the gesture in Jongin's face. "Not even this much?" he asks, concerned. Jongin's jaw tightens, and he can see the cogs turning in his head when it does, but he shakes his head anyway.
"I can't believe you're really trying to get me to bring you to my parents' house," he huffs out, using the back of his hand to clear the sweat from his forehead. "What gives, Baekhyun? You of all people-cooped up in a stranger's house for that long? Did Kyungsoo finally kick you out?"
Baekhyun weavles his arm in with Jongin's and presses himself against him for effect. It's too damn hot for this sort of thing, but he reminds himself it's all part of the act. "For your information, I do more laundry than Kyungsoo and Chanyeol combined. Kyungsoo's just picky about me washing my underwear with his 'after where I've been'," he recites, complete with air quotes. "Whatever that means. But… this surprisingly isn't about that."
Jongin's quite clearly looking at him from the corner of his eyes, and his face hasn't really changed. He looks confused and undeniably suspicious. "Then what's this about? You're not just looking for a vacation."
Baekhyun waits a moment, then shakes his head. They're almost back to his dorm and Baekhyun hasn't even explained himself yet. Let alone sealed the deal. When is Jongin leaving, he wonders.
"Well, if you really must know," he drawls, trying for suspense, "it's mostly for my own benefit. Of course." Jongin frowns. He continues anyway. "You suck at this whole teleporting thing and if you don't have someone to babysit you, who's to say you won't whip around Korea, end up in Pyeongyang on the border and get taken in by the North Korean government as a secret agent or something because of your unique powers?" Baekhyun paints it out with his hands like some elaborate headline of a newspaper.
"I don't think that's how that works, hyung," he says as they near his door, keys jingling as they come out of Jongin's pocket.
Baekhyun scoffs. "No shit, Sherlock. I'm just saying I can't have you screwing this up for me. Or Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, for that matter. And I know you haven't met them, but Luhan and Yixing, too. Someone's gotta make sure you don't blow your cover to your parents, or your entire neighbourhood. Or slice yourself in half, or get food poisoning or-"
"Slice myself in half?" Jongin cuts in, shaking Baekhyun off so he can unlock the door. "So basically you think I'm just gonna fuck everything up while I'm away. You're really not convincing me at all." If he's really observant, he can hear the tinge of anger in Jongin's voice, but he stays pretty calm otherwise. He unlocks the door and Baekhyun steps in first, taking in the view of stacked boxes. He can't believe that it's already been nine months-and now Jongin's leaving in a few hours.
"It's one of my best ideas. I don't see what the problem is," Baekhyun pouts, jutting out his lower lip as he turns away from the boxes to face Jongin.
When he refuses to answer his whiny pleas and just walks on to finish packing, Baekhyun fills in the silence. "You can put me on a leash, if that helps." Nothing. "I'm into that sort of thing."
"Baekhyun. I can't-" he says firmly, pausing to think as he heads for his room, box in hand. "I can't bring some guy home and expect my parents to be okay with it."
"You say it like it's a big deal. I'm not your boyfriend."
Jongin physically twitches at the mention of it. Frankly, it comes out a lot more spiteful than he means it to be, and it's obvious from the way it stings his throat on its way out. This conversation isn't going quite the way he'd planned it in his head. "No… But I can't, Baekhyun." And it sounds final.
Baekhyun catches his eyes for a moment, lingering, looking hard and a little confused. He almost feels bad for springing the idea on him-for imposing on the Kim family, but his stomach tightens at the thought of Jongin being on his own with his new, unharnessed abilities for that long. And maybe, if he digs deep, it's something more than that. He'll miss him, sure, the kid with wild bed head and a taste for late night rounds of Call of Duty, but he's become such an integral part of Baekhyun's everyday life that it seems somewhat wrong to see him off like any other classmate. This is Jongin. He’s not sure why it’s different, but that niggling feeling his chest won’t go away.
"I promise not to blow anything up, okay?" Jongin finally says after a stretch of silence. The corners of Baekhyun's lips curl up slightly.
"That's more Chanyeol's area of expertise, anyway.”
And that’s how the conversation ends. Baekhyun helps load up boxes, eats through the last of Jongin’s energy bars, and clears out Sehun’s hidden condom supply underneath Jongin’s sheets. By the time he gets the chance to check his phone, it’s well into the afternoon and Jongin’s ride will be here any minute. Jongin’s made the joke numerous times over the past couple days about transporting himself home, but Baekhyun refuses to acknowledge a single word of it. Frankly, he likes the Jongin with two arms, two legs, a head. It's just a big ‘I told you so’, waiting to happen.
Jongin takes the effort that Baekhyun won't and pulls him into a half hug when he's on his way out. He only talks to Jongin's parents for a few short minutes while hauling boxes into the back of the car and they're easily some of the most uncomfortable moments of his life. Jongin's dad wants to talk about the dream fulfillment he isn't achieving through his son's impending dance career, and his mother is too friendly-even if Baekhyun really does want to come visit for dinner sometime as thanks for taking care of 'her Jonginnie'. He barely reciprocates the gesture when Jongin jumps in the back seat and gives him his most charmingly dopey smile, handing waving wildly as they pull out.
And that's that. Gone for the summer, and an empty time slot for another person to inadequately fill in Baekhyun's schedule.
"You can always sleep in my bed, if you're feeling lonely," Chanyeol says that night to Baekhyun in the bathroom while he's brushing his teeth.
"I'd literally rather set myself on fire, thank you,” comes the muffled reply as he shakes his toothbrush at him.
When he falls into bed that night, it’s hard to think about anything else other than the fact that his room is missing a familiar warm body and will be for the remainder of the summer. He shoves the comforter between his legs, feet sticking out to avoid excessive sweating and face smashed into the pillow. Counting sheep has never worked before, and it would seem that tonight isn’t any different.
The first week is, according to Chanyeol, brutal.
“Would it be possible for you to leave the lights on? Don’t need to be welcomed by a fuckin’ strobe light party every time I walk in the room,” he huffs when he enters the kitchen, Baekhyun pooled on the table in a pathetic heap and bored out of his mind. “Dude. Just call him. Text him. Something.” Baekhyun just eyes him, apathetic.
“This isn’t about Jongin. I’m just bored. It’s a weekend and instead going and getting laid like I should be, I’m here.” He stretches out two fingers into a makeshift gun and aims right at the temple.
“Now whose fault is that?”
“Piss off.” There isn’t much of a bite in his tone.
Chanyeol gives up on trying to look for something to eat and slides into the seat across from Baekhyun. “I thought you applied for a few jobs. Vocal lessons or something? Escort? Can’t remember,” he says, reaching out to knock Baekhyun’s arms out from under his chin so his head flies toward the tabletop. Baekhyun swats at him. “Heard back from any of ‘em?”
“No. I guess I can always try Mr. Kwon about that assistant position. If I’m desperate.” Chanyeol almost ignores the distant lull of his voice, the detachment from everything that’s reality. Kyungsoo has a job, a pretty nice one in fact, and he’s hoping he can go a little longer by mooching off Kyungsoo’s salary from seven straight hours of whatever the hell it is he does.
Chanyeol rolls his eyes. “Certainly seems like you are. Could you be more transparent?” Baekhyun tries swinging at him again, missing when Chanyeol leans back with ease.
“You’re one to talk,” he says, eyes darting toward Kyungsoo’s room. And Chanyeol drops it, just like that. He’s been more of a couch potato than ever in the past week, and he refuses to trace it back to anything Jongin. When he heads to one of the chorale rooms to practise that evening, he cuts short the smile that’s curling on his lips when he remembers Jongin crashing into that very same piano, dazed and confused.
Baekhyun doesn’t even bother telling Chanyeol and Kyungsoo about his spur-of-the-moment expense on a bus ticket to Busan. And while he should feel guilty for up and leaving (as well as crashing at someone's house for who knows how long), the only thing he feels is the thrill of doing something on a whim. Not to mention the hope that the two bottles of cheap wine he grabbed will be a sufficient enough apology on both ends.
It’s times likes these that he wishes he could teleport like Jongin. That would make this a lot easier than crawling on some cramped, stuffy bus with one bag overhead and the other stuffed in his lap. The man next to him smells like a sewer and he’s almost positive the old lady a few seats away is undressing him with her eyes. He can drive, but he thinks it’s a bit much to snatch Kyungsoo’s car away for his getaway. He’s pretty sure that making himself scarce during his week to clean the kitchen is already punishment enough for them.
He falls asleep against the window, nearly misses one of his transfers, and falls asleep again on the last bus. If he even lets himself think for a moment about whether or not this makes his Stupidest Decisions list, he shakes the thought away with the phantom warmth of Jongin’s fingers on his neck.
this story is continued. part ii