Mould; (1/5); for EVERYONE

[perfectingart]

Title: Mould
For: EVERYONE
By: ANONYMOUS
Word count: 48,266
Warnings: highlight to read character death
Rating: R to NC17
Summary: Oh god, do you want to move out? Did I scare you already? I promise I’m not a stinky asshole all the time. Please stay, Mister Superstar.
Author's note: This is the story of how Baekhyeon dies via a bad joke. You gonna cry.

The concert hall rises in peals of applause.

Baekhyeon’s fingers are still poised over the keyboard, hovering, yearning to press a few more notes. They seem ready to crumble under their own weight.

The piano stool pushes back with a harsh, unwilling drag. Baekhyeon smiles, wide, his teeth hooking over the roundness of the lower lip. He hopes it is overdone enough to veil his hesitance.

Step by step, he ambles to the edge of the stage, the lights burning on his cheeks. When he blinks, his eyelids lag as if dusted with charcoal on the inside.

To the very last row of seats, people are standing and beaming in the backdrop of the red velvet that coats the whole theatre. He sees them like a mirage, the spectacle of a night with weak moonshine, twigs projecting monsters on the chipped walls of his childhood.

He has come a long way. This is a fitting end.

Baekhyeon bows, stiff fingers curled into a soft fist. His spine melts and leaves him in a puddle, cowering before the crowd.

The applause heightens into a strong din which spears into the tenderness in the middle of his chest. Baekhyeon lifts just a fraction, gaze connecting with the twinkles of his mother's eyes, then lower to her wedding ring that is illuminated on her hand which grasps his father’s upon the armrest. He bows once more to silence the hall.

He walks off the stage, leaden footfalls with a spring. Perhaps he is running.

A little girl is waiting for him just as he rounds the corner into the cool and quiet of the staff room. She is holding a huge bouquet of roses, nearly bigger than she is. Baekhyeon fights to raise the smile back up on his face as she thrusts the bouquet in his direction. He descends to her level, one knee on the floor. He takes one rose out of the arrangement and gives it to her. “Thank you,” Baekhyeon says. She starts to giggle, shrill and raw. She looks like she wants to thank him too, but her speech will not cooperate. Baekhyeon pets her hair, black curls winding around the paleness of his hand as he does so.

He turns on his heels, having a strong clasp on the young, vile thorns of the flowers. He is still smiling, and as petals mixed with blood fall in his wake to the dressing room, he thinks that this pain is nothing compared to what is to come.

“I want it pink with black,” Baekhyeon insists to the shop assistant all of a sudden. "Cotton candy pink." This was not part of the plan.

His eyes rake over the shop. It is as if the stink of rubber and metal drowns the place and he cannot see anything anymore. Finally, he spots a tint on a half-ripped flyer on the window. Pink enough. "Like so," he points. "Make sure the black is the blackest. None of that off-green, okay?”

The shop assistant nods, hastening to scribble notes on the sides of his order.

Outside the store, Seoul towers lazily over the ground. It is wearing colourful greys, not just monotone greys. It looks like a city to dream about; concrete that cedes to a caress.

He does not even notice the seasons anymore, the flowers on the side of the road are in a continuous bloom. Perhaps it is spring, or just bordering on winter. Autumn- and the rains are late, stuck a continent behind.

To his left, the terrace of a café is full, over brimming with customers and a flurry of waiters balancing trays. When he had entered the shop, it was desolate. It must be lunchtime now. Through the mask, he expects to be able to smell the abundant clouds of coffee, but he can’t, just his own soft breathing, confined, stained with staleness.

It is a fitting afternoon to commence, the petering notes of a prologue in the screeching tires of a busy city, an end to a defiant beginning.

A part of Baekhyeon’s closet is a mosaic of stacked suitcases. Then sponsored designer clothing, next his own clothing, rows of polished shoes, displays of jewellery- bracelets, rings, real gold plated with oxidable alloys, fake, fashionable rust in the grooves.

Baekhyeon unzips the smallest suitcase and starts looking around. He seeks for things that he deems necessary, unique, that cannot be picked from the nearest 7 Eleven, cannot be worn down until comfy and smelling of himself. He rounds the whole home twice.

There is nothing.

The address is scrawled in black marker on the glass of the entrance into the building. Wonmi, with a missing n and an eaten m. Inside, it smells like moisture flourishing into the plaster, of entrapped coldness. The walls have been painted over at least twice.

Next to the frame of his old door, the doodles are a phantom under the layers. Byeon family surrounded by the mainstream erroneous shape of a heart. Back then, he had thought the rim of that heart will never rupture, will always keep them together. And it did.

He does not press the doorbell. It never worked- Baekhyeon remembers pouring juice over it the first day they moved here. His knuckles wait, willing to knock. It is still too soon. It has taken him a little over an hour to get here from Seoul, whilst it had taken him years to dig himself out of this hole of a neighbourhood. An hour is nothing. An hour is mockery.

During its fall, his hand grazes the wood. A mistake that is more courageous than he is. He raps then, a few times. The wood is old, the sound of his knocks overreacting through the surface. Then the door is opened by a smiling Suyeong, a rush of dimples and fruity air fresheners spilling over.

The house is devoid of youth save for Jongdae, who has yet to finish high school. All his other cousins have grown and have left.

This is the kind of apartment that looks miserable if it is empty, if there is nothing to distract from the splotchy yellow of the flooring.

So Baekhyeon tries his best to at least fill the silence, fawning over his aunt and the snarky Jongdae who is going through a teenage rebellion, if the mop of permed, bleached hair on his head is anything to go by. Baekhyeon feels like he should have come with something, a gift, given that he is returning after so long. His hands are empty, so instead fills them with hugs.

Suyeong’s husband, Donghae, joins at dinner, one that Baekhyeon has helped Suyeong prepare. He is a funny man, waist thicker than the bunching of his smile at the corners of his eyes. It is a hot pot and Baekhyeon is left telling all the stories he never got to say since he left this town. Where he has been and who he has met. He does not even have to cook anything, as everyone is just filling his plate at random intervals. They are particularly generous when he makes them snort with laughter.

He manages to swap Jongdae’s water glass with a few sips of soju, without anyone else noticing. Jongdae’s eyes become glassy too, just enough to for Baekhyeon to brighten up.

Baekhyeon accommodates to lumpy pillows and being the bystander of separate routines. The crinkle of Suyeong’s toiletries at the crack of dawn as she gets ready, the brief click of low heels from the hall until they peter out. Then Jongdae wakes up and the screeching weird noise of his phone as he plays some games until he feels about ready to move can be heard. Donghae never wakes until noon.

He wakes with a start too, reaching for his phone, checking for some sort of schedule. But there is nothing, just the incoming string of fan emails. They are fun, heartfelt almost, and Baekhyeon rolls around on the springy mattress until his eyes burn from dryness. Some of them can get quite lengthy.

His old room is used for storage now. Baekhyeon sees the shadows left by the shelves on the wall. Each day he stays here, he looks at the pattern- a ghost trapped into the lime. Yet nothing else about it seems to have changed. His aunt’s family has been living in this place for longer than his own.

He plays video games with Jongdae, legs thrown over the coffee table in the living room, the borrowed pyjama pants folded into his high, fuzzy socks. His hair is shaggy and soft. Baekhyeon runs his hands through it repeatedly, no longer avoiding the hairspray that used to cake it.

He has not played any games in a long time. The graphics are now beyond headache-inducing pixilation, and often it feels like watching a movie. For a few tries, he feels out-dated, or Jongdae is just too sharp, but he practices on his own, on mute, silent as a mouse, a few nights when everyone is asleep. He stops just about when Suyeong wakes up to go to school. Then Baekhyeon is the one winning, having gotten the hang of it, the controller like home in his fingers. He could trust them, he knows as much.

He texts Chanyeol each high score and Chanyeol replies with very impressed looking stickers. Like he even knows what this game is about.

When he goes out again, after a week, it is a compulsion to take out the trash. A girl in a high school uniform spots him, and Baekhyeon is overdressed in dress pants, his shirt buttoned all the way- habits, what fame enforced on him. He gives her an autograph written with her glitter pen, something she most likely writes the name of her crush with, and wishes her a wonderful life.

Chanyeol arrives all dressed up in his suit, most likely having run straight from a meeting. He is wearing a jazzy tie- the sunniness of him in the middle of corporate grey- and the tiepin Baekhyeon gifted him. Baekhyeon no longer feels the need to tug it undone and mould his lips around the collarbone underneath.

Baekhyeon looks from side to side, not a person in sight. It is just starting to darken. So he steps out fully into the cold air. He is wearing some oversized pyjamas, so old and holey, his own pair, overstretched and falling down his wrists and way over his ankles. His battered slippers cut into his heels.

Chanyeol smiles at him, his megawatt smile, like he is trying to sell something, and it does not matter that the warm night is swarming with twenty varieties of flies and bugs and it is so humid that his hair gets frizzy in an instant.

"I brought your play thing, my beloved hobo," he whisper-screams, gesturing to the small platform tied to his car. It is a glamorous car. It is almost degrading to have it here in this rumbling suburb.

Baekhyeon looks down at his pyjamas and disintegrating slippers and he sighs, beckoning Chanyeol closer with his hand. "Take me to it."

Chanyeol scoffs, a little sound, and attempts to roll his eyes, but gives up halfway under the pressure of his smile. "I drove an hour to get here," he kind of complains, even as he crouches down, his back to Baekhyeon. Baekhyeon drapes himself over the offered surface.

"Why are you so big, I cannot even cling to you properly,” Baekhyeon complains, weakly looping around Chanyeol's shoulders. His arms go under Baekhyeon's thighs. They will not fall.

Chanyeol dumps him on the edge of the trunk of the car, and Baekhyeon immediately bends to untie the strings of the fabric draped over the platform. "Help me," Baekhyeon whines as he fights with the knots. Chanyeol watches him struggle a bit more until Baekhyeon glares at him. It takes him just two movements before the black fabric slides off.

Baekhyeon stares and stares. The shine of it is blinding, a token of his upcoming recklessness. Or perhaps a meagre wish fulfilled. "It is the right shade of pink," Baekhyeon says in the end, as if he can even discern in in the sicken glow of the street lamp.

Chanyeol regards him with a small frown, unwelcome on the smooth expanse of his skin. There is no enthusiasm to Baekhyeon, his words flat, a dim flicker of it at best. He shakes his head, the long-ago gelled strands of his hair breaking off his carefully composed hairstyle. “You love it, don’t you,'' Chanyeol says. Cicadas drown his inquiry.

Baekhyeon waits, looks again at the machinery, at its shine and its hugeness. The engine is massive, the armour over it barely cloaking it. Baekhyeon cannot wait to get on it.

"Chanyeol, hey hey,” he chirps, jumping on the platform, “Look at my motherfucking amazing motorcycle,” he says, and with the tone and vividness of a tiny kid, like they are toothless and playing in the mud all over again. It's not even a lie.

"Holy shit, your motorcycle, Baek," Chanyeol plays along, eyes wide in pure marvel.

Chanyeol stays there for a night, and he is all enthusiasm with Jongdae and Suyeong. He teases Jongdae with all sorts of embarrassing stories of his toddlerhood. He was a baby when they were still around.

He sleeps on the floor next to Baekhyeon's bed. All the beds in this house are too small anyway. They do not have another pillow, so he sleeps on a mountain of plushies, the legs of a teddy bear around his neck, a warm hug resembling a chokehold.

Chanyeol cooks breakfast for the whole family. It is a Saturday morning. The house is cramped enough for it to be imbued to the core with the smell. He is not the son of a restaurateur for nothing.

Baekhyeon sees him to his car. "I'll come again,” he promises, bringing Baekhyeon into an embrace. He is late, he is in a hurry, yet he takes his time in keeping Baekhyeon close. "Start small, okay? Like I taught you with the bike," he nods toward the covered motorcycle crammed into a nook in the parking lot. Maybe he worries that he will be donating organs in no time if he climbs on that thing. Not that anyone would want them.

“I probably won’t be able to get gas in that thing without the whole nation knowing,” Baekhyeon scoffs. “Tabloids will keep you updated on my endeavours.”

“I’d rather have you keeping me updated.”

“I send you like a million texts a day.” He narrows his eyes. He knows the curve makes them all puppy-like. “And you want more?”

“Everything, Baekhyeon,” Chanyeol says. It is too soft, too heavy. “Tell me everything.”

“Okay, you asked for it. You’ll hear all about every pebble in this town,” he takes the tie clip out of Chanyeol’s pocket and pins the tie with it. He pats his chest. “You’re so late.”

“Everything, Baekhyeon,” Chanyeol hollers in his natural unrestrained boisterousness before he gets into the car. That tone rarely comes out.

On the nightstand in his room, he spots the envelope with his new driver licence. The old one had expired.

Baekhyeon looks at the picture. He seems calm and unenthusiastic; unlike he was on the previous one, having taken it just so he could part time as a delivery boy to earn a few extra music lessons.

He lives with them for a while longer. Their attitude, no matter how warm towards him, say that he is a just temporary stay. Their routines are something constant, the same every day, the changes only minor.

Witnessing them irks Baekhyeon. He cannot stand repetition anymore. He cannot stand the template of sounds, of events that he is an extra in.

They are so unlike the ones he had, centred on public appearances when he was prepared to be judged first thing in the morning. He just had to make it until the studio, and then it would be another world altogether.

“I do not want to live alone,” Baekhyeon says over the phone. His foot taps, out of restlessness, out of boredom, cold on the tiles of the small balcony. He has learned to work around the slight glitch in his voice already. The air is starting to whiten in front of his mouth. Maybe this time he will have the chance to adore winter.

“I’ll find someone,” Chanyeol hums. Thudding and shuffling sounds in the background. He must be at the office doing paperwork, the bane of his existence. “Do you have any criteria?”

“A male with a pulse.”

“Oh,” Chanyeol exclaims, “that narrows it down a lot.”

“A nice male with a nice pulse.”

“I’ll find the nicest male with the nicest pulse.”

Baekhyeon kisses the receiver, a wet little smack of his lips that carries too many details. “Easy with the slobber, Baek,” Chanyeol chides, but he is laughing, low and gruff, spreading throughout his voice. Baekhyeon gives him three more kisses, increasingly explicit, and hangs up.

Ahead he sees bushes and short fences. He has not gone out to explore yet. It should be him looking for a place, but he has asked Chanyeol who has been here all this while, visiting some other friends and his extended family. He has come back; he kept those ties, whereas Baekhyeon has not stepped in this neighbourhood in over ten years.

He dresses up in inconspicuous clothing. He borrows some of Jongdae’s wax for his hair, something cheap and smelling of imposed manliness, making him feel as if he is lathering testosterone on his bangs to keep them away.

On the streets, the looks he receives are more than anything of disbelief. He is strolling along the avenue, casual and aimless. He is not approached, but he hears the click of phone cameras going off repeatedly.

He only recognizes an old lady. She used to sell yuja at the market whilst crouched beside a blanket of them. She lost sight in one of her eyes, but she still grins at Baekhyeon, a sparkling mouthful of artificial teeth, and tells him he is handsome. “Now buy more because I flattered you.”

Baekhyeon does buy all the dried persimmons she has in the box, three bags of them and eats from the bag one by one until he ends up sticky all over his mouth. He passes the gates of his old high school too. The fence is lower now, easier to climb.

If he looks up Jungwon high school on the internet, he will find pictures of himself and none of the grounds he grew up despising.

But the rest of Bucheon is as he remembers it. Maybe with fancier cars and more bared shoulders, prettier flowers planted by the sides of the road, but otherwise the same, cracked and quiet. A too tame playground, the hisses of unoiled swing hinges akin to the half-heartedly sung songs of preschools.

His aunt teaches him a recipe every evening, a small knife in her hand as she mumbled details about cooking times and sauce consistencies. He cooks for the whole family a few times, Jongdae pretending that it tastes terrible just to be a little shit. It is the aroma of a childhood that he never even missed.

He looks at the pleasant smiles on their faces, foggy from the spice, their endless hospitality. They are too nice, Baekhyeon deems yet again, as if he never abandoned them.

“Found a nice kid,” Chanyeol says, and it is an incredibly hoarse drawl. He must be exhausted “And he has a nice place and a nice pulse too.”

“How kid are we talking?”

“Not very. Just enough to have some drama for your entertainment.”

“So a twink.”

“A dignified young man who is very good with his mouth.”

A hiccup bursts out of Baekhyeon. It began as a chuckle. “How exactly is he good with his mouth?”

Chanyeol actually laughs, the ring abrupt. That must have taken too much effort. “You’ll see.”

Baekhyeon listens to the blaring snores of Suyeong’s husband and he nods, kicking out his feet from under the blankets, suddenly excited. “Okay okay, I’ll take him.”

He flips through the motorcycle’s user manual after he wakes up. There is gunk in his eyes, and he blinks thickly at the notions. At lot of drawings at least, arrows and mechanical terms that he has no idea what they mean. The language is slightly condescending, as if it is mocking the reader for reading it.

He bins the manual, running down the stairs and to the motorcycle where it sits covered in a nook of the unpaved parking lot. As he feeds the reservoir the few bottles he has bribed Jongdae into buying for him, he looks at the controls. It cannot be that hard. The engine has a soft hum, just as he ordered, the quiver of it mild. Mounting, the position is awkward compared to the scooters he had once mastered.

It just works. Baekhyeon is able to steer it, control the speed. The responses are fine-tuned, sensitive just right.

Baekhyeon plays with it all day. He goes up, past Gimpo, then west, rounding the coast. He has the time to look at street signs, to see some more scenery. Whenever he stops, feeling the steady unmoving ground under his feet, he takes a few pictures, rolling skies and open waters, for Chanyeol.

It is later than the hour that has been agreed on, but Baekhyeon appears at the door of the apartment with his hair wild and damp from wearing the helmet for so long. The door is a nice door, the building is nice, the floors are white and polished.

He rings the doorbell, the tone of an antiquated phone. Two bursts of three seconds, then the door is opened by a young man. He is lean, wearing sweatpants and an expensive-looking button up shirt. A flowery tiara is keeping his dark locks back, and one of his hands is poised weirdly, a viscous substance dripping from it onto the floor.
His lips gather into a pout. A full, luscious one, Baekhyeon observes. “Who…” he starts.

“Potential flat mate?” Baekhyeon grins, slightly, encouraging.

He blinks, slow and confused, before a spark ignites in his eyes. “Sehun did this didn’t he? That damn brat,” he mutters, not really angry but more like impressed. “That was quick.” Then he regards Baekhyeon with a shy smile, stepping out of the doorway. “Come in.”

Baekhyeon steps inside, and he sees the open kitchen littered with bowls and bags.

“I’m baking a cake,” the man clarifies, walking back to the cooking area. He brings out a slim scale from under the island.

“I’m Baekhyeon,” Baekhyeon replies. Perhaps it is a joke, because the boy halts, sugar spilling over, a tick to his head, then he chuckles, something short and sweet.

“I’m Jongin.”

“And also baking a cake,” Baekhyeon says, taking a seat on the stool adjacent to the kitchen island. Cocoa puffs up in Jongin’s face when he gets too near in order to measure exactly fifty grams of it. The substance on his hand is some egg white, now dry, a shiny film on his fingertips. He is reading from a wrinkled little receipt, stained around the edges, as he measures out the ingredient.

“What’s the occasion?” Baekhyeon inquires when the tin has been pushed into the oven.

Jongin is gathering spoons and spatulas into one of the dirty bowls. “My fiancé of two years just broke up with me.” The whisk is next. “I mean, yesterday morning. At 8:22. I wasn’t even awake when she moved out. She’s always been a rooster. A cute rooster. But still a rooster that isn’t mine anymore.”

His finger dips into a smudge of batter left on the bowl. It is mostly butter and sugar, forgotten, untouched by flour or egg. He licks the finger clean, a wet swipe and a pop of his lips. “Now I have a spare room. And a broken heart.” His head is not lowered, but high, a peculiarly wide smile on his face, twitchy, and his eyes are so vacant. It does not match at all. It is like witnessing a spar between gales.

“And cake. You also have cake.”

“I’ll marry the cake. I’ll just change out of these pants and be all perfect to play the groom. You emcee the ceremony.” This too is so vacant, the hilarity of it all gone. Baekhyeon has just met a wreck of a boy. Wreck for a wreck. Baekhyeon has faith that they will make it work.

“But have you proposed to the cake?”

Jongin looks at him with some sort of disbelief, indignation. It is playful, until the angle of his jaw sharpens along with his expression. “I made it. It’s mine. It’s got no say in this,” he looks down at the oven, the light inside meek and hot. “Actually that’s a little…dub-con. No, it’s full blown non-con.” Back to Baekhyeon, jaw still set, but with determination this time. “I will propose.”

It is then that Baekhyeon laughs, and it is not from the shallowness of a joke. It is the pure, precious merriment of being so entertained by someone’s mere demeanour. And Jongin looks at him, suddenly sober, calculative, before a smile tugs at his lips too, genuine this time. It is a nice sight.

“I’ll be the witness.”

The ring is a circle of rosettes on the top of the cake, a half-assed diamond on a side. Jongin gets down on one knee, his head barely peeking over the counter, and asks it to marry him. “Why is it not saying anything?”

“I think you got rejected,” Baekhyeon appraises the silence. “Again.”

“Oh,” Jongin gets up. His bones creak, and the tiara falls off. “Fantastic. Time to grieve with some cake.”
Then he stabs it, and piles scoops of ice cream on top. He hands Baekhyeon a tiny fork, takes one for himself, and just eats it from the cake stand. “This is great. I am fantastic at this. Look what a fantastic man she lost.” Baekhyeon takes a mouthful too.

“This is indeed fantastic,” and Jongin grins, lighting up a bit, as if surprised. Maybe he expected to only praise himself, not for anyone else to like it.

“Will you have me then? Since I’m so fantastic.”

Baekhyeon does not even look beyond the warm glow of the two lamps in the kitchen, to the darkness of the rest of the apartment. They talk no finances either. It seems Jongin needs a flatmate for the same reason Baekhyeon does, not to sustain the bills, but to have someone to stumble into in the living room. He wants to fill these eyes.

“I would like to.” And this is the contract, this is their agreement, this is how Baekhyeon gains a new home, with rich chocolate sticking to his palate.

“How was it? Do you like it?” Chanyeol asks.

“He’s hot,” Baekhyeon replies after a few moments. He cannot think of anything else to describe the encounter. It was brief and extremely intimate for a first meeting. Seems fitting to mention only a superficial detail. “And I like hot dudes, so yes.” His voice still lowers on that. There is no one around. “He is indeed good with his mouth, I found out,” a reminiscing grin tugs at his lip.

Chanyeol laughs, the strangled guffaw he only indulges in when he is at home and alone.

“Thank you, Chanyeol,” Baekhyeon says, and he says it too slow, as if he is grateful for a lifetime of kindness.

He uses thin, black bags from the convenience store to pack the few things he has gathered at Suyeong’s. Nobody is home. He leaves the bed tidy, all the plushies in order. He said his temporary good byes last night, over a dinner as boisterous as the one they had when he arrived. He will only be going a few streets lower, not even out of Wonmigu, merely changing scenery to high rises instead of shack-like architecture and untamed, lurking greenery.

They all fit in the little trunk of the motorcycle. He had checked right after he left Jongin’s place.

The licence plate is not known yet, but there have been a few blurry pictures, speculations surfacing on the internet. It may or may not be him.

Baekhyeon likes riding it so much that it will take no time for it to be confirmed. Then maybe he will either find presents hooked on the handle bar or his tires cut.

He encircles the whole complex thrice before he gives in and descends into the underground parking. His hand refuses to brake sooner.

Jongin is still sleepy as he opens the door, eyes puffy and lips puffy and hair puffier. His mouth opens, seemingly to say something, but instead he scratches at his belly and bows, leaving the door wide open as he turns. His feet tap, a straggle of toes on the floorboards. The sound carries on out of Baekhyeon’s view, then the beat of a collapse that must have hurt.

Baekhyeon wonders if he’s the kind of person who would rather crack their skull open and not ever wake up again than have to face the morning.

Baekhyeon steps inside, leaving his shoes by the single pair dormant in the foyer. Polish next to dullness, leather next to suede.

In daylight, the apartment looks different. Brightness cuts all the ridges of the furniture, angular and abrupt. The colours match too, a strife of warmed greys, like silver set ablaze. Baekhyeon doubts Jongin is the one who picked all of this- the harmony is so good that it seems cheap, aseptic.

Then there are the reams of papers and books and cups all over the place to counter it all.

From the current flowing through the open door, the pages rustle, forests rubbing together, then the door is pushed shut by the gust. The crash makes Baekhyeon ears ring.

He ambles in the direction of the other door, a different wood from the one of Jongin’s, and opens it. Unoiled hinges. The walls are bare, the shelves are bare, and it smells of sawdust and minced time. Baekhyeon looks down at the two little bags he is holding, one of them with just persimmons, and deems that the room will not be much fuller after he is done settling in.

Calling his manager, Amber, will be a conversation too long and too abrasive, so he goes for her assistant, ordering him to have picked some stuff from his apartment and sent to this address.

Baekhyeon looks out the window. This is the twenty-third story, high enough to make him feel too powerful or too infinitesimal. It’s about a third of the height of his penthouse. At least people can be seen from here.

He touches none of the books splattered over the couch and coffee table, but he runs his eyes over the spines of the ones on the shelves, picking a random one and leafing through it for the hour and a half it takes to have three boxes brought to the door. Even through the commotion, Jongin does not wake, his form fused with the sheets of his bed.

Baekhyeon’s refused the services of the ones bringing the things, so he runs around, steps cushioned as he distributes nothings here and there. His toothbrush in a separate cup in the bathroom, the cleaning supplies under the sink. He huffs and puffs as he fits the bedding over the mattress. His favourite mug, the varnish of it cracked along the rim, next to the other one on the counter. The packs of skincare placed on the ledges in his room.

He is handling the clothes from the third box when Jongin nearly trips into him. He is glancing down with a defocused stare. It’s way past noon, and he looks just about the same as he was when he greeted him in the morning.

“Aren’t you a superstar?” His eyes narrow, like he cannot pinpoint where he knows Baekhyeon from.

“Not right now, as you see,” Baekhyeon gesticulates to the thrown garments around him. Folding has never been his forte.

“You…piano, do not you?”

“I piano, yes.”

“And you’re a superstar.”

For some reason, Baekhyeon hides his hands underneath the t-shirt in his lap. “Yes, that too. Occasionally.” A superstar- as if he is doused in glitter and smiling with a mouthful of lies instead of teeth.

Jongin nods, hair prickling his eyes as he crouches next to Baekhyeon. He stretches into a yawn before grabbing a shirt and starting to fold as well. “You’re not exempted from washing dishes and taking out the trash, Mister Superstar,” Jongin says, words splitting into another yawn.

“Is he a college student or something?” Baekhyeon asks as he shuffles on the parquet. He has these thin slippers that slide so well. He has already face planted into the wall a few times. This is some primitive kind of fun, and Baekhyeon is mastering it.

Chanyeol gives his perfunctory hum, acknowledgement that he has heard, not that he is listening. No reply comes. He just puts Baekhyeon on speaker and lets him ramble in the background. Perchance he is not even in the room anymore, for he can even hear the faint static of the air rather than Chanyeol’s breathing.

“I’m not,” Jongin says, a creaky holler ferrying from his room.

Baekhyeon gasps, sliding in two bursts to the other end of the apartment, to Jongin’s door frame. Damn, this is fun. “Did you just talk?” he asks with suspicion. Excitement gives into his tone. He is so bored that any noise would get him merry. He cannot wait to get rid of the fog of new acquaintanceship with Jongin, and it has been two days since the man has said anything to him. “I think you’re selectively mute.”

“I’m not.” His fists twist over his eyes quite roughly, cheeks scrunching along.

Baekhyeon cannot even see him properly over the towers of textbooks on his desk. Twelfth grade biology, he sees on one. “I don’t know how else to explain all of these then,” he gestures. Pens and papers and a huge pin board on one of the walls.

“I’m a writer.” He stops rubbing and gives Baekhyeon a red-rimmed stare. His lips are paler. “A writer is a person who writes. And I do that like eighty per cent of the time, so I must be a writer I guess.” He suddenly focuses on Baekhyeon, and his face twists even more. “I’m sorry I forgot to…acknowledge you. Neglected you. Inspiration punched me in the liver. Then it punched me in the nuts for good measure.”

“Is every time you write a near death experience?”

Jongin chuckles, lengthy and translucent. “No. Just now. It usually punches me in the heart, but now it’s in crumbs, so that would be no use. It would just be like heart puree. Like mashed strawberries, except terribly morbid and stupidly metaphorical and reeking of sour iron.” Pallor alights on his features, a twitch to his eyes, as if he is having all that gore in front of him for real. “Oh god, do you want to move out? Did I scare you already? I promise I’m not a stinky asshole all the time. Please stay, Mister Superstar.”

The phone in his hand still has the phone call going on. He hears some movement, more than the clamour of static. “Chanyeol,” he says. “This is the best thing you ever found.”

Jongin smiles widely, and there is some substance to it this time, weighing prettily into its corners.

It turns out Jongin is in a continuous interrogatory mode whenever he interacts with Baekhyeon. It is not the prying kind but rather the detail oriented, plain and for which he usually has no answer kind. Such as why he has his things strategically placed so he could be out the door in the shortest amount of time, when he does not need to be anywhere. He had never noticed. Now he has time to grind his coffee beans instead of throwing himself an instant one just so he can get rid of the queasiness of an empty stomach before rushing out.

Jongin has weird habits. He is jittery. The door to his room never closes. Sometimes it is ajar, and when it is ajar, he looks for something in the closet. That happens only when he plans to go out, sometimes getting dressed and deciding against it as he about is to put his shoes on.

More than anything, Jongin is looking at him with reverence, with curiosity, and it takes a short while for Baekhyeon to notice he acts like this with everything. It is just a writer’s curiosity, just him watching his everything. He never asks though, how come Baekhyeon is here.

He is at the peak of his heartbreak, not really sad yet, a little numb, holding it all in, abusing it in is writing.

Baekhyeon sees sporadically that there is more to him that the surface interest, the intent to extract trivia, to write it down.

It dawns on him that this is just Jongin’s method of mourning, of letting go, when he notices the bottle of shampoo in the main bathroom, empty already, but filled with water so nothing is wasted. The hair bands he constantly wears. He wants to smell like her, wants to cling to her.

Baekhyeon revels in the smell of gasoline now. He notices it clinging to him, beyond the strata of his skin. He cannot negate his attraction to the speed, the thundering purr of pushing a machine to its limits. He has bought equipment, thickened leather apparel- windproof regalia; gloves and a bunch of kneepads for when he gets daring with the veering. The crack of armour as it cuts across him is resemblant to that of a whip.

The housekeeper who passes weekly by his home in Seoul reports to him every time the amount of speeding tickets that have amassed in his mail. A few tens, a negligible expense. He never goes past a speed limit that could revoke his permit.

Baekhyeon reaches Daejeon, the longest ride yet, flying beneath the motely strobes of the Expo Bridge just a bit after midnight. All he thinks about is how two of his concerts would fit into this time frame- each symphony a city long, the intermezzos blending into the screens of ceaseless black on either sides of the highway.

It’s pushing noon when he returns. Quietude imbues into him the moment he kills the engine, tingles in his fingertips. His heart rate dips, gradual and lulling.

Jongin is in the living room, awake- which means he has not slept at all, bending over the table as he taps away on his laptop, back to the front door. Delayed, he calls a greeting over his shoulder, calling him Sujeong, not for the first time. He never looks up, never bothers checking.

Baekhyeon walks quietly to his room, without retort, keeping his hands to himself and his steps careful, so his masculine cologne and the fetor of fuel does not spread and shatter Jongin’s bubble.

In his room he texts Chanyeol, the residual quiver transferring onto the keyboard. I am addicted to this.

The message is read instantly. More than ten seconds pass and nothing comes in reply- Chanyeol’s disapproval; he was hoping Baekhyeon would hate the motorcycle.

The phone starts ringing in his hand though, and Baekhyeon bites his smile and accepts it.

“Have you given it a name?” The voice bypasses any greeting or response, the inflection of his query flat.

Baekhyeon cages the phone between his ear and his shoulder, working at the zippers of his jacket. “I did. Aeri.”
Chanyeol laughs. “What if it is not a fan of yours?”

“Impossible.” Not even a beat. “I’m its daddy, and a prodigy too. What is there not to like?” The jacket coils on his wrists. He jumps until it falls to the floor. “You should try this some time. I’ll take you with me.”

“You’re not afraid of speeding tickets,” Chanyeol peeps.

Baekhyeon will not forgive the housekeeper for this treachery.

“And I was the one picking up that thing for you. Of course I looked at the engine capacity. Industrial shredders are safer than that thing.” Admonishment mixes with pretence, a frontage for worry.

“I’ll keep the speed legal for you, babe,” Baekhyeon cajoles, unbuttoning his pants. He is too lazy to tug them down manually, so he shimmies his hips until they slide off and bunch on his knees.

“I’ll never think about it.”

“Oh, but you will, babe.”

Then whatever Chanyeol says back is lost because Baekhyeon tries to take a step forward, his legs locking on the fabric as he plunges inelegantly into the bed, face first, phone flying out of his hand.

Meals with Jongin are either a grandiose affair or a nearly pathetic one. The experiences are either a sugar-coated luxury or salted wind as they shiver under a bridge.

Baekhyeon rarely goes shopping, for it may end up in a mess, drowned into a crowd of fans and a million shutter clicks; whatever brand of milk he bought being sold out all over the country. Jongin hardly steps out of the house, and when it happens, it is for at least half a day, and he wanders god knows where, coming back empty handed and grumpy every time.

He is now boiling a pot of some soba noodles he rescued from the pantry and frying them in soy and some vinegar. It is bland and crispy and tangy because he has poured way too much vinegar into the mixture.
Baekhyeon likes them like this, eating straight from the frying pan, chopsticks scratching against the metal. “We could have ordered,” Baekhyeon says around a mouthful, like every time other time they have eaten this kind of meal. The initiative gets weaker and weaker. He does not know what it is so delectable about eating this kind of sloppy stuff, but it definitely brings him a rush. It washes over the sequelae of having had a billion five star meals. He is pretty sure Jongin gets satisfaction out of his veiled excitement too.

As per script, Jongin regards him with a glower, tinted oil lining his lips as he says, “No. We will not get that low.”

“The nutritional value of this is even lower than that,” he attempts countering, mouth too full, and Jongin just hisses at him, all scornful and joyous.

When the impetus comes, Jongin puts it all into making sweets. They are complex- it usually takes more than two days to finish a batch. Baekhyeon always watches him bake, and there is a line between his eyebrows that will not smooth out no matter how much he grins at Baekhyeon’s antics.

Jongin bakes out of frustration. Three flavours of cupcakes and at least two batches of different kinds of frosting in the fridge at any given time. Their aroma is strong, scorching into the fluff, and incredibly sweet, as though aiming to compensate for something. There is always a pack of butter on the counter, left out to soften.

Baekhyeon can tell that it is particularly bad; the torment of whatever thing is on his mind, when Jongin would put on a jacket over his pyjamas and run out, only to return with a carton of thirty eggs. The mixer would always be working deep into the night.

Jongin’s hair is an everlasting mess from how he runs his hand through it. He is not wearing the flowery tiara anymore. Baekhyeon sees the abused locks tufting over the towers of books every time he passes by Jongin’s room.

He never sits normally either, contorted in some position that Baekhyeon cringes at the sight of. “Writing hurts,” Jongin says, breathy. He is on his back, laptop on his stomach, and his shins underneath him.

Baekhyeon does not laugh at that anymore. It is a feeling he can relate to; the deep ache within his joints after a full day of practice. Sedentary activities, no matter how mentally stimulating, are bound to take their toll.

Hence, he ventures to try these positions too, along with Jongin, stretching in every direction. Jongin’s flexibility puts his to shame, but he still cheers on, until they make contests out of who can hold a pose the longest. The one who loses has to go pick up some groceries.

Jongin begins letting him win after the second time Baekhyeon comes back panting, holding the bag with the goods to his chest for dear life, eyes wide after he had to run from a crazy fan who had every intention of abducting him.

Baekhyeon sips his coffee directly from the French press, his other hand toying with the bottle of vanilla extract. In front of him is a tray of cupcakes left to cool. He saw the frosting in the fridge- pale yellow, lemon probably. Baekhyeon does not know what this fixation is on Jongin, but there is something about him that is unnerving in the most delightful of ways. Jongin’s general idiosyncrasy. An itch that has morphed into a tickle.

He plucks out his phone from under the elastic of his underwear- these pants have no pockets. The drama of this boy is making me fat. Where the fuck did you find him? He has meant to inquire this for a while.

Someone will drown between your thighs.

Chanyeol only says things like these-lewd- when he is in the middle of writing lyrics. Outside this circumstance, he is one big, dorky prude.

Baekhyeon sends him the finger. After a few more sips, he also sends a kiss.

An hour later: Sehun, his best friend, is a dance instructor at the company.

It is too soon for him to have expected to completely divest of his habits. He has abided by hectic schedules for over a decade, hasty on his feet, chased by the expectation of coming up with a symphony greater than the last one. He still checks for rehearsal announcements, being called to inspect auditoriums. He has stepped on red carpets more than he has stepped on green soil.

The first thing he does each morning is to still warm up his fingers. He burns through entire bottles of hand cream between fortnights. As he files his nails, every three days, he thinks of the sprightly after notes of the piece he ends all concerts with.

Now there is nothing of that kind in his life. He misses it, perhaps more than he is willing to admit.

Today, Baekhyeon caves in and watches one of his concerts in Vienna, the centrepiece of an acclaimed festival. Tens of thousands had attended; a motionless sea that Baekhyeon could not see the margins of.

He recalls the wonderful gardens there, sculptures and quietness, the melt of Salzburger Nockerl on his tongue, the stench of a mountain of flowers piled up in his hotel room.

It was three years after graduation, after being scouted, after meeting Chanyeol again.

Before Baekhyeon can regret anything, Jongin knocks on his door, his head poking in. His glasses slide down his shiny nose, red spots bruised on either side of the bridge.

“Come beat me?” He bats his eyelashes, and he has a broomstick in each hand.

“Then you twist my arm and kneel onto my back,” Jongin instructs. He is panting, his hair wilder than ever, and his shirt is some small thing that threatens to rip apart from the strength of his wheezing. Baekhyeon sighs, grabs him, and takes him down with movements completely different from the ones Jongin suggested. He groans into the floor, from the mere impact. Baekhyeon is not actively restraining him.

“That wouldn’t have worked, because I’m smaller than you.”

“Would it work if I did it?” he asks, still muffled. Baekhyeon does not know why he still has not let him go. It is funny to have Jongin squirming under him, perhaps. His hapikido skills are not dead, nor the combat techniques Zitao insisted he learn.

“Let’s try.”

Jongin plays the bad guy from there on, Baekhyeon being the irresistible protagonist. He ends up pinned to the floor by Jongin, as the scenario dictates. He lands soft, held by Jongin’s attentiveness and the cushions randomly littering the place. It is practice for all the fight scenes he has to write, but sometimes he seems to be getting so into it, careless at the details, as he just laughs, driven in immobilizing Baekhyeon just for the hell of it.

He is never successful. Baekhyeon’s hands are on his sides, palms on his ribs, the pulse on his neck visible as it is thrown back, chuckles spilling past Jongin’s cleaved mouth. His legs are immovable.

“Your hero would be super dead right now,” Baekhyeon says, knocking on Jongin’s chest with his knuckles, before he lifts off him and goes into his room, blinking fast to erase all the imagery of what has just occurred.

The surfaces are dust-free. The smoke of burnt incense is still hazy in the air, faintly fragrant.

There have been plenty of instances of him being gone for bouts way longer than a month, but it was never like this, to be entering his own home and feel like a visitor, a transient stay between too many walls.

What calms him is the muted susurration of Seoul beneath, restless, distinctive, as it wafts and braids with the smoke. Baekhyeon listens to it all night, half-indrawn into slumber.

No one has washed his car. Baekhyeon appraises the dried splatters on it with a raised eyebrow. It looks like a finger painting done with mud, rain and speed. A squall was frothing over the city the last time he had went out with it. It has not been touched since.

As he drives towards the company, he finds that the only thing disquieting him is the safeness he feels inside the car, a seatbelt and walls on all sides. No thrill in this type of commute.

Hence, his mood is slightly dampened as he reaches the building, wordlessly passing through all the public figures drifting about until he can take the corner and fall into his manager’s office. Amber never stops listening to all that rap, and the beat of it carries beyond the door. He cannot bring it in himself to smile truthfully. His lips superficially tug at the corners.

Baekhyeon is solely here to discuss some finances, something that is of barely any interest to him, but it has to be done. Surely, he was expecting the onslaught of question that Amber launches in once Baekhyeon is seated in front of her desk. He does not disclose why he is stopping now.

She asks again and again what this hiatus is for. He was soaring, just after the drop of an album, in the middle of a tour. “Let the reporters squirm,” he says.

Amber looks at him weirdly. Playing the press is not big deal, but playing the company is.

“You should relax a bit,” Baekhyeon finally smiles. It is needed to erase the cruel frown gracing her face. “I am freeing you from a bit of stress. I am aware that I can be difficult sometimes. Doing nothing is quite enjoyable. Give it a try.”

He is not under any contract; he is not tied to the company. He is hybrid between an idol and a cultural personality, independent to the point of needing publicity and some time management. Amber can walk out any time too.

Among other publications paving her desk, he sees the magazine issue that is to appear next month, featuring him on the cover. Inside is a generous spread of him; the shoot having taken place in the middle of Bangkok during the wee hours of the morning, when drunken people were still finding their way home. There must be an interview too, although he has no recollection of what was scripted for him to answer with.

The fans will have feed on this. No point in gathering more pity crumbs.

Baekhyeon accompanies Kyeongsu in a stroll through the streets of Hongdae. The stoic little soloist is bundled in a black, long jacket. He looks like a balloon- a nondescript person catching no light and no gazes.

They are both in incognito mode. Kyeongsu is better at it.

They listen to indie bands out on the streets, no amplifiers, dressed sparsely but too high from the thrill of the performance to feel the chilliness. Baekhyeon does not really like this type of music, the vocals seemingly in a quarrel with the instrumentals rather than complementing each other. He is more of an electro fan beyond the classics.

Kyeongsu is all judgemental, even though he is not saying anything. His eyebrows convey it all, along with the small grunts here and there. Baekhyeon giggles at some of his expressions of pure distress, wrought over the collar he has buttoned up way past his chin.

Conversation does not flow between them until Kyeongsu has had his fill of listening to bad music. Then it is just Kyeongsu listing on cravings prior to hopping in front of the first food cart he sees. Ddeokbokki. He has the habit of overeating whenever mildly irked. This does not occur frequently.

They take the stools next to the cooking area, the trays boiling right in front of them as they take off their masks. Baekhyeon’s mouth waters at the smell. The ajumma does not say anything, does not stop her shuffling of the goods, even as they call each other by name, stuffing their faces with too many portions.

Kyeongsu appraises the stack of disposable bowls with a knotty expression. “My manager will be absolutely livid.”
“Is he training you for strip shows now?” Baekhyeon asks. He sips from the little cup of broth, rich and salty. Jongin would like this.

“I think he is, yes.” He looks at Baekhyeon, puzzled. “I am a singer who sings, not a singer who strips for fuck’s sake.”

Baekhyeon attempts to snatch a few pinches at his tummy. It is hard to wrestle his way under all these layers, and Kyeongsu nearly falls off the stool in his effort to get away from Baekhyeon’s pursuit. “I couldn’t grab anything,” he pouts. He has reached his destination. “That’s sad. You have precious organs there. They need the padding.”

Kyeongsu fumbles into his jacket, the amazing labyrinthine depths of it, and stamps the bills on the table. “Damn right they do.”

With a nod, he signals to their four bodyguards to approach.

They turn back to the street, away from the spicy vapours, walking with the stream of people for a while. It is early enough for most loiterers to be sober. No one minds them.

“Are we not famous enough?” Baekhyeon asks, deciding to tuck the mask in his pocket, letting his face freeze a little. It has been nearly half an hour since they have left the cart.

Then a couple of girls steal gazes at them before whispering between themselves, then some other little groups. Some of them are even pointing. “You’re fucking huge,” Kyeongsu says, as if it is the most obvious thing, and he puts on his mask.

Baekhyeon perhaps is huge, known enough, talented enough, made enough of an indent, a pianist worth remembering, of being the pride of this nation. He is more than someone forgotten in a dusty, gold-plated concert hall, appeasing to snobs. He is someone young, a man liked for his charms, a man who managed to sell glamour to people choking on diamonds.

The corners of his lips burn as they twitch into a smile. It must be from the hot sauce.

“Are you calling me fat?”

Kyeongsu hits him in the shoulder.

It is morning, too early. Baekhyeon wakes up early these days, like he did when he was young and too eager to start learning each and every sunrise. Now he is awake because he forgot to turn the heating on, again, and his toes are about to fall off. He realizes that he has never noticed the echoes of his penthouse.

He coerces Chanyeol into going out to breakfast at Viva Polo with him in the morning. He is there first, his mother smiling and cuddling him in a booth the moment he steps inside.

She asks all about his wellbeing, all the while her hands massaging his, like she used to when Baekhyeon stared at them with disdain, when they would not satisfy the heights of his imagination. They are just as soft. Baekhyeon does not have to fake his smile.

When Chanyeol arrives, he leaves a giant peck on Mrs. Park’s cheek. Chanyeol is dressed up all the way, hair combed, and his eye bags a shock of purple in the smoothness of his face. “Being a morning person seems to look worse and worse on you, babe,” Baekhyeon greets once Chanyeol’s mother leaves for the kitchen.

Chanyeol groans, looking down at the table like he cannot wait to drop his head on it.

“I’m not a morning person,” Chanyeol says, muffled into another groan.

“I know. I’m sorry I dragged you out at this time.”

Chanyeol looks at him, aiming a glare, but it just does not show. That takes too much effort. “You’re not sorry at all.”

“I am,” he persists, getting closer over the table. Chanyeol’s eyes are still the prettiest eyes he has ever seen. He carries too much in them, reflecting what is inside rather than what it is outside. “A little little bit.” His tongue pokes out, his thumb and forefinger coming together, until they stop short, half a centimetre between them. Chanyeol’s eyes blink, unveiling with a darkening,and then he blinks again, longer, his eyelashes twitching with the force.

His hand comes over the table too, his own thumb and forefinger over Baekhyeon’s. He shuts them. “Do not be sorry. Not even that much.”

He looks at the clasp. Chanyeol’s big palms over the daintiness of his own, warm and encompassing. It has a tremble, visible from the wrist up. “Okay,” he says, dropping back into his seat.

They cannot eat in peace, for Mrs. Park rushes out of the back room with a heap of old albums, tacky plastic over the clumsy immortalization of their youth. Between stolen bites, Baekhyeon gets to see Chanyeol losing all his teeth, then growing these blinding rows just as he settled into his obsession with puddles and hiking- if walking on the grass instead of the paved alleys in a public park could be considered hiking. The ferret phase is the cutest- Chanyeol tending to a bunch of them, treating them like his kids, giving them supposed pocket money and life advice and trying to teach them to read and write.

The current, grown up Chanyeol next to him squirms in place with embarrassment whilst Mrs. Park gives him the humiliation of his life. Baekhyeon soothes his giant by offering him forkfuls of whatever is on his plate. His stomach will not stop rumbling.

After the daddy Yeol phase is over, Baekhyeon appears in the pictures too, tiny and small-eyed next to Chanyeol. It was Chanyeol who followed him around like a lost puppy though, looking down at Baekhyeon with utmost fascination. Baekhyeon has been mouthy from the very first moment he learned enough words to form a sentence, and Chanyeol found this trait very cool. A whirl of colourful birthdays, the number of candles growing until the cake just did not happen anymore, as they preferred going out with their little gang of colleagues than celebrate at home with the boring parents.

Baekhyeon’s finger stops on a partly ripped picture. It is their first day of high school, after being miraculously assigned in the same class, grinning from ear to ear, the both them sporting the shaggiest mane of red locks possible. “I can’t believe we did that, and for a whole year,” he voices, grimacing. By the end of it, their hair was so fried that they had to cut it all off. That summer had seen a lot of their scalp.

Mrs. Park finally leaves them alone as the restaurant begin filling. Chanyeol sighs, deflating, a man freed of anguish. Baekhyeon laughs at him, like the good friend that he is, and starts mixing the stew in his bowl. It has gone partially cold. Chanyeol dislikes cold foods.

Sauce brims over his lips when he is done, having wolfed it down in a few blinks. He was definitely starving. Baekhyeon would not be surprised to hear that he has had his last proper meal a morning ago.

He only looks sated after Baekhyeon pushes towards him the rest of his plate, reclining with a pleased grin, a well-fed puppy, hands cradling the soft distension of his stomach. Mrs. Park’s cooking has this effect. Lazily, he peeps at the sole picture resting on the table.

Chemically fired hair or not, that was still one of the best years of their life.

Baekhyeon stares at it too, and slowly, with contemplation, his gaze lifts to meet Chanyeol’s. His expression is just as wicked.

“You’re free this afternoon.”

Chanyeol’s eyes dilate. He was not expecting for Baekhyeon’s proposition. Half his face twists in horror, whilst the other half belatedly caves into excitement. “I am free this afternoon.”

This afternoon, Baekhyeon jumps up and down next to Chanyeol, both of them facing the mirror. “You’re a clown! Again! And I’m a clown! Again!” he squeals, not minding the watching of the famous patrons in the salon as he gets on his tiptoes to run a hand through Chanyeol’s hair and the other through his own.

He cannot stop doing it, even while Chanyeol is driving. He looks kind of crazy, a by-product of foolish bravery. It suits him. This is the Chanyeol he was aforetime, before adulthood washed away most of his spark.

“If Tiffany kicks you out,” he whispers, still fingering the strands, “you’re welcome on my couch.”

“Your couch sucks,” Chanyeol says.

“I have like ten couches.”

“All of them suck.”

“Fine, my bed then. No clothes allowed in it though.”

He does not last as long as he had planned.

Two days later he finds a ticket to his last concert fallen behind a dresser; the only thing wearing dust in the whole home. He had meant to give it to someone, someone he was giddy for- possibly a date, at least a sexual interest if not a romantic one. At that time, he did not know this would be the last one.

Baekhyeon cannot even recall their face.

He leaves the ticket in a street trash bin. A few seconds later someone kills their cigarette on it, leaving ash over everything Baekhyeon’s built.

The row of the ‘We’ve the state’ complex is too nice, he thinks yet again as it comes into view. Bucheon, of all places, was granted such investment, such luxury. It is nothing but an outcast of a big city.

Then Baekhyeon remembers that everyone yearns to thrive, no matter how meagre, just like he did.

The tune of the door keypad has been disabled a while ago- Baekhyeon could not stand it. So nothing announces Jongin of him entering the apartment. There have been occasions of him being scared out of his own slippers by Baekhyeon’s presence, having assumed he was still out. His glasses once flew off.

This time, Baekhyeon marches directly to his room to say hi. One step to the threshold, he finds himself grabbed and slammed, albeit gently, into the wall right next to the door. His shoulders are secured to the wall, knees pressing in the middle of his thighs. Baekhyeon has no room to thrash.

“Was that smooth enough?” Jongin asks, eager, and his mouth tugs, too full and too pink and Baekhyeon knows that he is breathing over it.

“You forgot to knee me in the stomach, but otherwise yes, that was pretty good.” Baekhyeon’s heart thumps fitfully from the suddenness. Maybe his words came out as less assuring.

His hands run down Baekhyeon’s chest, straightening the rumple of the clothes he nearly torn. “Welcome back, Mister Superstar,” he says, warm, and Baekhyeon feels truly welcomed.

this story is continued

part ii