Symptoms for ordinary_days01
For: ordinary_days01
Title: Symptoms
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/Baekhyun
Rating: NC-17
Length: 4.9k
Summary: Chanyeol has an addiction. and it comes in the form of campus rockstar byun baekhyun. college!au.
Author's note: hopefully this is what you wanted, OP! ;n; i apologize if i got a little carried away with what little smut there is oops.
a cold, blustering wind still finds space beneath the jacket clinging tight to his body despite his best attempts to shield himself, scraping his skin; he doesn’t know why they decided to sit outside and is beginning to regret it. jongdae doesn’t seem to notice, impervious to all but his own voice even as the wind buffets auburn locks of messy hair in front of his eyes. “no, that’s dependency. addiction is different. you have to have physical withdrawal symptoms for it to be addiction. just being like, uncomfortable without your phone for a day doesn’t count. I learned that in nat. psych last year,” he adds at the end, as though in apology for being unintentionally pedagogic, though with jongdae’s ever-blithe tone, he never really sounds apologetic.
chanyeol will forget the rest of their conversation in the coming years, but this definition remains with him, and the way the wind sneaks through the layers of his clothing will always remind him of the boy and how he managed to get under his skin despite all he tried to forget about him.
the boy. not jongdae, no.
he meets the boy for the first time months later on any old day. or, sees him for the first time, really. the college listserv has just sent out one of its biweekly event calendar emails, and chanyeol is punching in numbers on his calculator for statistics homework when jongdae asks him: “hey, mamba kiss is having a show tonight. it’s free, want to go? I think they’re trying to promote.”
“what the hell is mamba kiss?” he doesn’t bother to look up from copying down the numbers in his notebook, and so misses the way jongdae stares at him uncomprehendingly for a few seconds until he finally glances up, wondering why he hasn’t answered. “what?”
“how have you been going here for two years and not know mamba kiss? don’t you look at the ads or anything?” chanyeol just furrows his brow at him a little in response, so jongdae simply sighs and continues. “it’s the college band? rock band? you know, leather jackets and eyeliner and a bunch of fan girls? you seriously haven’t even heard of them?”
now chanyeol begins to feel a little dumb and shrugs in a dismissive attempt to dispel the sensation, avoiding meeting jongdae’s judgmental gaze. “guess i should go check them out if they’re that popular. what time?”
which is how he ends up, five hours later, packed towards the front of the school’s outdoor ampitheater ( none of the indoor stages wanted to deal with the noise pollution spilling over into neighboring hallways and disturbing everyone else ), standing shoulder pressed to shoulder with jongdae on one side and an extremely excited girl on the other who continuously swoons to her friend about the lead singer and how he apparently was spotted earlier in the day with newly dyed dark magenta hair that looks oh so dreamy she could cry. chanyeol shifts and glances over the heads around them, feeling a little like a fish out of water. even jongdae seems excited, though he feeds off the energy of the crowd. “ . . . didn’t really like the stuff from their last album; it was a little too soul-y for me, but maybe they came out with better stuff over the break. you should listen to the stuff from their first mini, you’d like - oh wait, here we go!”
jongdae’s words, however, aren’t what alert chanyeol, who’s only been half listening at best. instead, it’s the way the crowd around him swells into high tide, excitement level rising so intensely he could be buoyed above the trees on its current, cheering and screaming swooping down from the back towards the stage like an avalanche that descends and engulfs his hearing. he turns his eyes to the stage, to the lone young man walking out wearing a bright smile, waving casually to the audience as he steps to the microphone. he’s shorter than chanyeol had thought he would be, though until this moment he hadn’t realized he’d been nursing any preconceptions, with the messy afore-mentioned magenta hair, newly dyed, that reminds him of jongdae’s hairtstyle but flatter, a little softer-looking, like a feather dusting. those pants cling unrepentently to his legs, and the silver-studded jacket of black leather accents the wings of onyx ringing piercing eyes. he looks familiar, and in that moment chanyeol doesn’t quite have a chance to remember where he’s seen him before the boy takes the microphone in hand, leaning in so close he swears he’s trying to make out with it.
“how’s everyone feeling tonight!”
the enormous cheer that goes up has his heart thrumming with adrenaline even if he’s not a fan, though the way the boy smirks and chuckles right into the microphone afterwards might just convince him. “sounds great. thanks so much for coming out to see us! we’ve got a lot of new stuff for you guys, so stick around till the end. for anyone new tonight joining us for the first time, we appreciate you being here. we’re mamba kiss, founded right here on this campus a couple years ago. let’s go ahead and introduce ourselves. I’m the lead singer, byun baekhyun.”
it doesn’t take long for chanyeol to realize that he’s, by and large, the most popular. aside from a couple of songs, rock is not usually to his taste, but within the first several chords of their opening song, he finds that what the band has to offer isn’t so bad, though admittedly he keeps thinking about how the boy -- baekhyun. the name is baekhyun -- keeps singing right up against the microphone, practically straddling it. he likes to close his eyes when he sings, as if the world and the sea of fans in front of the stage melt away from his reality, a feeling chanyeol finds kinship to, though he rarely has any audience at all when he practices alone on his guitar. he finds himself bobbing along, rocking on his feet to the rhythm, a smile on his lips; it’s a slower song at first, which, though jongdae complains, chanyeol finds more to his liking.
and then there’s the note. it’s somewhere in the middle of the song, and the boy slides right up to it, flawlessly, his voice ringing with rich caramel, and there’s something about it, something chanyeol can’t put his finger on, that makes him shudder. it sequesters itself in his heart and anchors itself there, though he won’t realize it until later that night when he’s lying in bed and the afterimage refuses to leave his mind.
addiction, he soon learns, comes in many forms. the first are the pictures - rows upon rows of them. the school website is in no shortage of footage for their star band, and chanyeol so often finds himself neglecting work and books that pile up, unattended and discarded, on his bed while he scrolls through the galleries, searching always for that lead singer. he finds that he especially likes the shots where baekhyun’s straddling the mic like he had during that first concert, caught mid-note, an almost-snarl immortalized on his features. and then there are the practice shots, all staged of course, and chanyeol feels like he can just about figure out where he’s seen the kid before, but each time the epiphany dies at the fringes of his memory. he doesn’t realize he’s in so deep until he comes across a year-old school newspaper gossip column article speculating at baekhyun’s relationship with a junior on campus ( “he’s super popular - like, idol popular, chanyeol. i can’t believe you never knew!” jongdae remarks with a dubiously raised eyebrow at the subject when he brings it up, later ) and feels the familiar twist of jealousy in his chest.
“are you going?”
chanyeol is getting out of his seat, backpack halfway to his shoulder, one headphone already in. the boy who sits in front of him in his calculus class is talking to his friend excitedly. “baekhyun’s fansign? hell yeah I am. let’s hurry so we get there early.” in their haste to get out the door, they don’t see the way chanyeol’s stopped, head lifted as if to try and catch the trailing end of their conversation. his guitar lessons start in ten minutes. normally, he wouldn’t skip those for the world.
even though the other two are power-walking their way across campus, it’s not difficult for him to keep up with height and long legs to his advantage. part of him scolds himself - he can’t believe he’s doing this. he doesn’t even have anything to be signed; he’s not even a fan. ( of anything but baekhyun, anyway. ) but he goes regardless, because he wants to know if those teeth are just as cute and pointy and wolfish as they look in the photos, because he wants to see that brilliant smile in person, because he wants to see those hands fumble with pens and paper right in front of him. the dining hall is very out of the way - a good twenty minutes’ walk from his dorm and the rest of his classes. he barely goes to this part of campus. heart hammering in his chest, he can’t find himself sympathizing with the crowds of girls ( and some boys ) already flocking to the room set aside for the event. their blushing, tittering chatter doesn’t reflect him. all he can feel is a crippling anxiety.
it only worsens the moment he steps into the room. it takes him only a few seconds to scan above everyone else’s heads and locate him, seated at the table against the wall, smiling up at a girl as he scribbles a signature across the album cover. suddenly, chanyeol finds himself questioning why he’d come here, why he’d wasted twenty minutes and skipped practice to walk all the way here and do nothing. (because he knows he’s going to do nothing.) invisible vines have wound themselves around his feet and he’s paralyzed, standing like a garden gnome in the middle of the room, blocking everyone else’s way.
and the burning sensation in his stomach is almost too much to handle. the way baekhyun had smiled - no, beamed -- up at her like that. (why couldn’t it be him?) yet at the same time he knows it won’t be, because he’s never going to go to a fansign like this again, not like the other people gathering in crowds, living for those ten seconds of acknowledgement and hoping for something special to happen. he can’t live with the thought of being another face in a sea of thousands, forgotten as soon as the next person steps up. sick to his stomach with longing, chanyeol struggles to find the strength in himself to turn and leave, nearly smacking into another girl on the way out before stepping past her, ignoring the curious looks he gets from those immediately around him. stupid. absolutely stupid idea.
the door unintentionally slams when he returns to his room - the hall is drafty to begin with, but he can’t necessarily say he hadn’t closed it a little harder than usual - startling jongdae from where he’s lounging on his bed, looking at his phone. “hey, you’re back early.” chanyeol ignores the implied question in his statement and slings his backpack onto his own bed before heading for the bathroom. but when he emerges again, jongdae doesn’t let up. typical. “something up?” it’s the genuine concern in his voice that finally wins him over; they both know he takes guitar lessons more seriously than most other things in life.
“I didn’t go.”
he can feel jongdae staring at his back, waiting for elaboration that he doesn’t want to give. frustrated, he musses a hand through his hair and flops onto his own bed, back to his friend, thinking maybe he can just sleep the events of the day away. “I was doing other stuff.”
“… like going to baekhyun’s fansign?”
chanyeol flips over incredulously to face his roommate, disbelief in the knit of his furrowed brow, prompting a laugh - infuriatingly amused - from the other boy. “you had like a thousand tabs of him open on your laptop -- ”
“why the hell were you looking at my laptop!”
“it was open! I was just walking by!” chanyeol briefly contemplates throwing jongdae from their third story window. “you really like him, huh?” in response, chanyeol only scowls darkly at him before turning back onto his other side and stuffing his headphones back into his ears. unfortunately, the music doesn’t start fast enough for him to miss jongdae’s triumphant laugh. he wishes he could punch him in the face without getting into trouble for it.
but how can he deny it? the evidence is too stark. it coils itself like a serpent around his ribcage when he lies under the sheets at night and the adrenaline of lust has dissipated enough from his mind for him to realize just how ridiculous it is that his thoughts keep going back to baekhyun when he touches himself. he tries - he tries so hard to think of anything else: pornstars, the hot girl in the first row of his calculus class, anything but that stupid lead singer and his long, tapered fingers and the way tight leather pants cling to his legs so well, dark eyes flashing like coal embers when he looks up from the microphone in the middle of growling a low note -
that thought has an ache throbbing between his legs again and he bites his lip against a deep groan, reluctantly rolling over onto his stomach and snaking a hand down so he has something firmer than the mattress to rub himself against. don’t think about him. don’t think about him. but as inevitably as smoke will seep into the corners through even the slightest crack, the thoughts begin to drift in whenever he so much as begins to let his guard down. and it just feels so much better imagining that he’s grinding himself down against a pliant, soft body instead of his hand. maybe baekhyun would be hard beneath him too, the stiff outline of his cock pressed against his own. maybe he would he desperately rolling his hips against him, the urgent, uneven rhythm keeping him just under the threshold of complete satisfaction enough to have him rutting harder, chasing perfection, and the space between them would be all hot, cloying breaths and too little air.
he plays with the thought of that voice, too. it’s so rich when he sings and he wants that same quality ringing in moans against his ear, breath strained and catching each time he pants his name. this would be when chanyeol’s buried deep inside him, he thinks with another tense grunt muffled against his pillow and the curl of his own fingers in the sheets. baekhyun would take every inch of him, the whole of his length gripped so tightly, the friction unbelievable with each rough thrust into that soft, willing body. chanyeol feels warm fluid drip over his palm and he knows he’s slick with precome all over again, despite having come less than fifteen minutes ago. only baekhyun gets him this hard this fast, has him so close to the edge again so quickly.
the story in his mind keeps unraveling. he’s on his back now, and the singer is braced on top of him, knees straddling his hips. he’s pounding up into that sweet, tight ass - “fuck!” -- and is rewarded by rhythmic, high cries, bordering on blissful sobs, right into his ear, by the shattered breaths of “chanyeol - chanyeol, please, yes, more, chanyeol -- ”. baekhyun’s body is jerking forward with each movement and he’s begging for him, telling him he’s the only one who can make him feel so good, who can give this to him, who fills him up so well with his long, thick cock and before he knows it chanyeol’s coming over the curl of his fingers with a quiet snarl. he milks himself through it, grip tightening to squeeze out the last drops dribbling from the slit, a shuddering gasp breaking past his lips as his thumb slides over the swollen head.
he could stop there, but would baekhyun? what if he kept going, kept lifting those hips and sinking back down on him even after he’d come, riding the flushed stiffness of his cock before he got soft? he mimes the visions of his imagination with his palm though he knows baekhyun would be so much tighter, unable to bite back half-moans and whimpers from the oversensitivity flooding his nerves. it’s too much. he’s arching his hips up even as he’s trying to squirm away from his own touch, simultaneously craving more and needing desperately to stop. he hears himself pleading for mercy and somehow baekhyun’s name slips in there somewhere; in the darkness behind his closed eyes the phantom of the singer is there on top of him, teasing his overstimulated cock with no sign of letting up, magenta locks messy and slicked to his forehead with sweat -
the chorus of dang dang dang jolts him from his fantasies and his eyes snap open even as he groans with reluctance. every nerve screams for him to ignore his phone, but he knows it’s jongdae who needs him to pick him up from a late night party off campus, and he’d already agreed ahead of time. wiping off his come-streaked hand on a dirty t-shirt he needs to remind himself to throw in the laundry, he grabs his phone with the other hand and brings it to his ear.
“chanyeollie -- !”
“yeah, yeah, I know. give me five minutes.”
“okaaay.” jongdae sounds more than a little tipsy as he blows him a kiss over the receiver. “you’re the best. see you soon!” he really needs to think about a single next year.
it’s on his way down the stairs to the first door and the dorm parking lot, sweatpants and a t-shirt hanging off him (it’s 2am; who’s going to see him?) that he hears it. for a split second, he thinks he’s imagining things, but that’s definitely the sound of someone playing the piano in the lobby. who does that at two in the fucking morning? granted, it’s a saturday, but still! it’s been there for as long as he’s been living here, and he’d always thought the instrument was just for decoration. no one actually used it; it probably wasn’t even tuned. any music kids went to the actual music building to practice, where they could be guaranteed privacy and solitude in their concentration. the only time he’s ever heard any sound coming from it was that one day last year when -
he pauses midway down the steps.
baekhyun.
that’s where he recognizes him from. dear god. all along, it’s because the kid lives in his own fucking -- !
“hey!”
he must look like a deer caught in the headlights when his head snaps up, and suddenly he’s staring right into those dark, slightly downward-sloped eyes that had just been burning holes into his sexual fantasies five minutes ago. the shame of it slaps him in the face and he would stumble backwards if he wasn’t in the middle of the stairs. “huh?” holy shit had he just said huh? like an idiot? and why isn’t he dressed in something nicer, something that doesn’t make him look like a hobo? even jeans would’ve been better!
apparently embarrassed by the abruptness of his own groundless greeting, the boy -- it’s been how many weeks? his name is baekhyun! -- blushes. his cheeks definitely turn a little pink and he looks down a bit. what the hell - he’s a school-famous rockstar and he’s blushing? he’s not supposed to be cute too! “u-um, sorry. you’re - chanyeol, right? park chanyeol?”
he knows his name. jesus help him.
“uh . . . yeah.” more dumb one-word answers. he swears he knows his own name. (but apparently not when baekhyun is the one asking him.)
but he still looks a little discomforted and even fidgets a little with his hands, wringing those longer fingers together. “jongdae - well, he kind of told me about you. i mean, he told minseok, and then minseok told me. about you.”
chanyeol feels like he’s suddenly stepped into someplace apart from reality. or at least the reality he knows. this is too vivid to be a dream, right? it’s all happening too fast, but unlike in dreams he doesn’t get the conveniently placed background knowledge of the moment implanted already into his artificial memory. “minseok?” it’s all he can bring himself to say, when in reality he wants to say what the fuck jongdae told you about me?
“oh, our sound production guy. um, sorry, i thought you would know him. jongdae’s - i mean, he’s your friend, right?”
right now he’s toeing the line between friend and worst fucking enemy who chanyeol swears is trying to sabotage everything about his life, but - “yeah. yeah, he’s my friend.” finally, more than one word. he’s getting there.
his growing verbosity apparently encourages baekhyun, because he brightens up a little bit like a flower slowly opening its petals and his shoulders drop a little in relaxation. “oh, good. i was wondering -- ” the end of his statement is drowned out by another round of supreme team from chanyeol’s back pocket, making him nearly jump clean out of his skin. cursing under his breath, he digs out the intruding device even though he knows who’s calling and frowns at the stupid selfie jongdae had taken with his phone that’s set as his contact picture. stabbing the ignore button, he apologizes in a muffled voice that sounds clogged and distant to his ears before looking back to baekhyun, ears burning with humiliation.
“it’s okay,” he laughs, though (laughs, and his smile really is just that nice up close too). “wow, jongdae really has terrible timing, huh.”
you don’t even know the half of it. “yeah. what - what were you asking me?” he can’t help but be a little impatient; he swore, somewhere in the midst of dang dang dang, that he’d heard something about coffee.
“i was - i wanted to know maybe if you - uh, wanted to hang out sometime, maybe?” chanyeol feels all the blood in his veins freeze up. he thinks his heart stops for a second. “like, lunch someday, or coffee.”
“ - what.”
he would feel bad about the awkward embarrassment that comes over baekhyun’s face right then as he starts stammering an apology about this being a weird time to ask - two in the morning and all - but he doesn’t even hear any of it past the pounding in his ears. hang out with him? baekhyun wants to hang out with him? he even knows he exists? an insistent buzzing from his back pocket shoves him from his reverie again and he nearly throws his phone at the nearest wall. it’s a text this time.
chanyeollie where r u :( u said 5 min……..
then another one pops up right afterwards: stop jerking off to baekhyun and pick me up already :( :(
ears on fire again, he does the first thing he can think of and immediately shuts off his phone, praying that baekhyun hadn’t seen that (even though he couldn’t have, really). he’s going to kill jongdae later. it’s only when he’s staring at the black screen in his hand that he realizes there’s an uncomfortable silence in the air, and his eyes dart back up again. shit. what had he just said? “uh, sorry, i - yeah, i’d love to do that sometime.” he winces at himself; the words sound so fake after that long pause. “sorry, i just . . . ” never realized you even knew who i am and i was imagining you riding my dick ten minutes ago. “you’re just - so famous. why me?” well, that’s close enough.
baekhyun gets that bashful half smile like he’d been expecting this question, and shuffles a little on his feet. cute. “well, i wanted to ask you that day at the fansign - i saw you there. but you left so quickly. i thought maybe you had class or something and there were too many people.” chanyeol can’t believe his ears. he remembers he’d been standing near the back of the room, surrounded by swarms of people. all he can recall is the way baekhyun had smiled up at that girl - the thought, even now, curls his blood with jealousy. he’d seen him there? and then it comes back to him, how he’d turned so quickly and shoved his way out like he’d needed air, how he’d almost bumped into someone in his haste to leave. he must have looked so dumb.
“i - well, that’s not really why . . . but -- ” how can he tell him that he’d left because he couldn’t stand being one in a million? that the thought of just being a fan and nothing more filled him with such emptiness he couldn’t bear it? “i’d - love to hang out sometime. really. sorry, it’s just - like, really sudden . . . ”
“great.” that smile is back, and chanyeol notices that the corners of his eyes curve up a bit when he’s happy. he itches to reach out and pull him close; the tips of his fingers physically tremble, like an addict within reach of their coveted thing, just out of their grasp. “i’m free for lunch tomorrow. give me your number and i’ll text you?”
he can only nod. it sounds like a date. he’s asking for his number. it’s all unreal and he’s standing there for a few seconds, lost in the disbelief of it, before he realizes that ‘give me your number’ means yeah, i should actually give him my number. he stumbles through half of it before his brain, which has been bailing on him since the beginning of this conversation, decides to forsake him again and he has to awkwardly dig out his phone and look up his own damn number, apologizing what feels like a thousand times. but baekhyun only laughs, makes him feel like everything’s okay, and chanyeol watches him plug it into his phone under his name. “i’ll definitely text you.”
“okay.” chanyeol realizes the moment is over, now, and that it’s his cue to leave. but he doesn’t want to. it’s only the guilty reminder that he’d shut off his phone on jongdae that eventually persuades his feet to turn at last towards the door, the swivel of his body reluctantly following. sure enough, when he turns on his phone again, there are half a dozen new texts from his roommate at varying degrees of whininess. with a “see you later then” (tomorrow sounds too expectant, too eager, right?), he makes to head out, and only then does he remember what had struck him in the first place. “wait -- ”
halfway back to the piano, baekhyun turns again to look at him, eyebrows arched in query. “you - did you live here last year? i think you - i recognized you and - playing -- ” he stops, closing his eyes. he lets out a frustrated sigh at his own inability to talk. “you used to play the piano here, right? i think that was you.”
to his surprise, baekhyun looks flattered that he remembers. “yeah.” chanyeol will only later learn that last year had been before mamba kiss had gotten so popular, and baekhyun had been just a pudgy music major kid that no one paid attention to. no one would have looked twice at him then. “that was me. i like it late at night here on the weekends. everyone else is out, and the music building’s a bit of a walk. sometimes people even stop and listen, and, well, you get to know people that way. it’s how i met yixing, actually. in the band.”
he nods and turns away, but then stops again. “oh, and -- ” he blushes, but forces himself to keep going. last question, he swears. “wait, what did jongdae tell you about me?”
embarrassment sinks into the dregs of his stomach when baekhyun giggles a little - with jongdae, it can’t be anything good, that’s for sure. but even chanyeol is surprised when the response is “oh, just that you like me.” he’s been hit with too many things out of left field today, but this one is really the kicker. “well, he actually phrased it as you being addicted to me, but i didn’t want to say that in case it sounded creepy - which it doesn’t! i mean, i’m not saying you’re creepy. sorry.”
his phone buzzes again. no surprise, it’s littleshitdae. ok whatever pcy i’m staying over at junmyeon’s place then :( :( i’ll tell him u abandoned me
chanyeol sets his phone on silent, then, and jogs back up the few steps from the front door to the lobby. he feels oddly rejuvenated, suddenly brimming with a strange sense of triumph. all this time, baekhyun had known about him and he had just basically asked him out. no, not basically. knowing he liked him and then inviting him to lunch and coffee? that had to be a signal, right? “hey, actually? that song you were playing - can i watch you play?”
baekhyun’s smile as he nods and sits back down erases what remains of chanyeol’s regret. fuck jongdae; just for that, he doesn’t deserve to be chauffeured back to the dorm, anyway.
Title: Symptoms
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/Baekhyun
Rating: NC-17
Length: 4.9k
Summary: Chanyeol has an addiction. and it comes in the form of campus rockstar byun baekhyun. college!au.
Author's note: hopefully this is what you wanted, OP! ;n; i apologize if i got a little carried away with what little smut there is oops.
a cold, blustering wind still finds space beneath the jacket clinging tight to his body despite his best attempts to shield himself, scraping his skin; he doesn’t know why they decided to sit outside and is beginning to regret it. jongdae doesn’t seem to notice, impervious to all but his own voice even as the wind buffets auburn locks of messy hair in front of his eyes. “no, that’s dependency. addiction is different. you have to have physical withdrawal symptoms for it to be addiction. just being like, uncomfortable without your phone for a day doesn’t count. I learned that in nat. psych last year,” he adds at the end, as though in apology for being unintentionally pedagogic, though with jongdae’s ever-blithe tone, he never really sounds apologetic.
chanyeol will forget the rest of their conversation in the coming years, but this definition remains with him, and the way the wind sneaks through the layers of his clothing will always remind him of the boy and how he managed to get under his skin despite all he tried to forget about him.
the boy. not jongdae, no.
he meets the boy for the first time months later on any old day. or, sees him for the first time, really. the college listserv has just sent out one of its biweekly event calendar emails, and chanyeol is punching in numbers on his calculator for statistics homework when jongdae asks him: “hey, mamba kiss is having a show tonight. it’s free, want to go? I think they’re trying to promote.”
“what the hell is mamba kiss?” he doesn’t bother to look up from copying down the numbers in his notebook, and so misses the way jongdae stares at him uncomprehendingly for a few seconds until he finally glances up, wondering why he hasn’t answered. “what?”
“how have you been going here for two years and not know mamba kiss? don’t you look at the ads or anything?” chanyeol just furrows his brow at him a little in response, so jongdae simply sighs and continues. “it’s the college band? rock band? you know, leather jackets and eyeliner and a bunch of fan girls? you seriously haven’t even heard of them?”
now chanyeol begins to feel a little dumb and shrugs in a dismissive attempt to dispel the sensation, avoiding meeting jongdae’s judgmental gaze. “guess i should go check them out if they’re that popular. what time?”
which is how he ends up, five hours later, packed towards the front of the school’s outdoor ampitheater ( none of the indoor stages wanted to deal with the noise pollution spilling over into neighboring hallways and disturbing everyone else ), standing shoulder pressed to shoulder with jongdae on one side and an extremely excited girl on the other who continuously swoons to her friend about the lead singer and how he apparently was spotted earlier in the day with newly dyed dark magenta hair that looks oh so dreamy she could cry. chanyeol shifts and glances over the heads around them, feeling a little like a fish out of water. even jongdae seems excited, though he feeds off the energy of the crowd. “ . . . didn’t really like the stuff from their last album; it was a little too soul-y for me, but maybe they came out with better stuff over the break. you should listen to the stuff from their first mini, you’d like - oh wait, here we go!”
jongdae’s words, however, aren’t what alert chanyeol, who’s only been half listening at best. instead, it’s the way the crowd around him swells into high tide, excitement level rising so intensely he could be buoyed above the trees on its current, cheering and screaming swooping down from the back towards the stage like an avalanche that descends and engulfs his hearing. he turns his eyes to the stage, to the lone young man walking out wearing a bright smile, waving casually to the audience as he steps to the microphone. he’s shorter than chanyeol had thought he would be, though until this moment he hadn’t realized he’d been nursing any preconceptions, with the messy afore-mentioned magenta hair, newly dyed, that reminds him of jongdae’s hairtstyle but flatter, a little softer-looking, like a feather dusting. those pants cling unrepentently to his legs, and the silver-studded jacket of black leather accents the wings of onyx ringing piercing eyes. he looks familiar, and in that moment chanyeol doesn’t quite have a chance to remember where he’s seen him before the boy takes the microphone in hand, leaning in so close he swears he’s trying to make out with it.
“how’s everyone feeling tonight!”
the enormous cheer that goes up has his heart thrumming with adrenaline even if he’s not a fan, though the way the boy smirks and chuckles right into the microphone afterwards might just convince him. “sounds great. thanks so much for coming out to see us! we’ve got a lot of new stuff for you guys, so stick around till the end. for anyone new tonight joining us for the first time, we appreciate you being here. we’re mamba kiss, founded right here on this campus a couple years ago. let’s go ahead and introduce ourselves. I’m the lead singer, byun baekhyun.”
it doesn’t take long for chanyeol to realize that he’s, by and large, the most popular. aside from a couple of songs, rock is not usually to his taste, but within the first several chords of their opening song, he finds that what the band has to offer isn’t so bad, though admittedly he keeps thinking about how the boy -- baekhyun. the name is baekhyun -- keeps singing right up against the microphone, practically straddling it. he likes to close his eyes when he sings, as if the world and the sea of fans in front of the stage melt away from his reality, a feeling chanyeol finds kinship to, though he rarely has any audience at all when he practices alone on his guitar. he finds himself bobbing along, rocking on his feet to the rhythm, a smile on his lips; it’s a slower song at first, which, though jongdae complains, chanyeol finds more to his liking.
and then there’s the note. it’s somewhere in the middle of the song, and the boy slides right up to it, flawlessly, his voice ringing with rich caramel, and there’s something about it, something chanyeol can’t put his finger on, that makes him shudder. it sequesters itself in his heart and anchors itself there, though he won’t realize it until later that night when he’s lying in bed and the afterimage refuses to leave his mind.
addiction, he soon learns, comes in many forms. the first are the pictures - rows upon rows of them. the school website is in no shortage of footage for their star band, and chanyeol so often finds himself neglecting work and books that pile up, unattended and discarded, on his bed while he scrolls through the galleries, searching always for that lead singer. he finds that he especially likes the shots where baekhyun’s straddling the mic like he had during that first concert, caught mid-note, an almost-snarl immortalized on his features. and then there are the practice shots, all staged of course, and chanyeol feels like he can just about figure out where he’s seen the kid before, but each time the epiphany dies at the fringes of his memory. he doesn’t realize he’s in so deep until he comes across a year-old school newspaper gossip column article speculating at baekhyun’s relationship with a junior on campus ( “he’s super popular - like, idol popular, chanyeol. i can’t believe you never knew!” jongdae remarks with a dubiously raised eyebrow at the subject when he brings it up, later ) and feels the familiar twist of jealousy in his chest.
“are you going?”
chanyeol is getting out of his seat, backpack halfway to his shoulder, one headphone already in. the boy who sits in front of him in his calculus class is talking to his friend excitedly. “baekhyun’s fansign? hell yeah I am. let’s hurry so we get there early.” in their haste to get out the door, they don’t see the way chanyeol’s stopped, head lifted as if to try and catch the trailing end of their conversation. his guitar lessons start in ten minutes. normally, he wouldn’t skip those for the world.
even though the other two are power-walking their way across campus, it’s not difficult for him to keep up with height and long legs to his advantage. part of him scolds himself - he can’t believe he’s doing this. he doesn’t even have anything to be signed; he’s not even a fan. ( of anything but baekhyun, anyway. ) but he goes regardless, because he wants to know if those teeth are just as cute and pointy and wolfish as they look in the photos, because he wants to see that brilliant smile in person, because he wants to see those hands fumble with pens and paper right in front of him. the dining hall is very out of the way - a good twenty minutes’ walk from his dorm and the rest of his classes. he barely goes to this part of campus. heart hammering in his chest, he can’t find himself sympathizing with the crowds of girls ( and some boys ) already flocking to the room set aside for the event. their blushing, tittering chatter doesn’t reflect him. all he can feel is a crippling anxiety.
it only worsens the moment he steps into the room. it takes him only a few seconds to scan above everyone else’s heads and locate him, seated at the table against the wall, smiling up at a girl as he scribbles a signature across the album cover. suddenly, chanyeol finds himself questioning why he’d come here, why he’d wasted twenty minutes and skipped practice to walk all the way here and do nothing. (because he knows he’s going to do nothing.) invisible vines have wound themselves around his feet and he’s paralyzed, standing like a garden gnome in the middle of the room, blocking everyone else’s way.
and the burning sensation in his stomach is almost too much to handle. the way baekhyun had smiled - no, beamed -- up at her like that. (why couldn’t it be him?) yet at the same time he knows it won’t be, because he’s never going to go to a fansign like this again, not like the other people gathering in crowds, living for those ten seconds of acknowledgement and hoping for something special to happen. he can’t live with the thought of being another face in a sea of thousands, forgotten as soon as the next person steps up. sick to his stomach with longing, chanyeol struggles to find the strength in himself to turn and leave, nearly smacking into another girl on the way out before stepping past her, ignoring the curious looks he gets from those immediately around him. stupid. absolutely stupid idea.
the door unintentionally slams when he returns to his room - the hall is drafty to begin with, but he can’t necessarily say he hadn’t closed it a little harder than usual - startling jongdae from where he’s lounging on his bed, looking at his phone. “hey, you’re back early.” chanyeol ignores the implied question in his statement and slings his backpack onto his own bed before heading for the bathroom. but when he emerges again, jongdae doesn’t let up. typical. “something up?” it’s the genuine concern in his voice that finally wins him over; they both know he takes guitar lessons more seriously than most other things in life.
“I didn’t go.”
he can feel jongdae staring at his back, waiting for elaboration that he doesn’t want to give. frustrated, he musses a hand through his hair and flops onto his own bed, back to his friend, thinking maybe he can just sleep the events of the day away. “I was doing other stuff.”
“… like going to baekhyun’s fansign?”
chanyeol flips over incredulously to face his roommate, disbelief in the knit of his furrowed brow, prompting a laugh - infuriatingly amused - from the other boy. “you had like a thousand tabs of him open on your laptop -- ”
“why the hell were you looking at my laptop!”
“it was open! I was just walking by!” chanyeol briefly contemplates throwing jongdae from their third story window. “you really like him, huh?” in response, chanyeol only scowls darkly at him before turning back onto his other side and stuffing his headphones back into his ears. unfortunately, the music doesn’t start fast enough for him to miss jongdae’s triumphant laugh. he wishes he could punch him in the face without getting into trouble for it.
but how can he deny it? the evidence is too stark. it coils itself like a serpent around his ribcage when he lies under the sheets at night and the adrenaline of lust has dissipated enough from his mind for him to realize just how ridiculous it is that his thoughts keep going back to baekhyun when he touches himself. he tries - he tries so hard to think of anything else: pornstars, the hot girl in the first row of his calculus class, anything but that stupid lead singer and his long, tapered fingers and the way tight leather pants cling to his legs so well, dark eyes flashing like coal embers when he looks up from the microphone in the middle of growling a low note -
that thought has an ache throbbing between his legs again and he bites his lip against a deep groan, reluctantly rolling over onto his stomach and snaking a hand down so he has something firmer than the mattress to rub himself against. don’t think about him. don’t think about him. but as inevitably as smoke will seep into the corners through even the slightest crack, the thoughts begin to drift in whenever he so much as begins to let his guard down. and it just feels so much better imagining that he’s grinding himself down against a pliant, soft body instead of his hand. maybe baekhyun would be hard beneath him too, the stiff outline of his cock pressed against his own. maybe he would he desperately rolling his hips against him, the urgent, uneven rhythm keeping him just under the threshold of complete satisfaction enough to have him rutting harder, chasing perfection, and the space between them would be all hot, cloying breaths and too little air.
he plays with the thought of that voice, too. it’s so rich when he sings and he wants that same quality ringing in moans against his ear, breath strained and catching each time he pants his name. this would be when chanyeol’s buried deep inside him, he thinks with another tense grunt muffled against his pillow and the curl of his own fingers in the sheets. baekhyun would take every inch of him, the whole of his length gripped so tightly, the friction unbelievable with each rough thrust into that soft, willing body. chanyeol feels warm fluid drip over his palm and he knows he’s slick with precome all over again, despite having come less than fifteen minutes ago. only baekhyun gets him this hard this fast, has him so close to the edge again so quickly.
the story in his mind keeps unraveling. he’s on his back now, and the singer is braced on top of him, knees straddling his hips. he’s pounding up into that sweet, tight ass - “fuck!” -- and is rewarded by rhythmic, high cries, bordering on blissful sobs, right into his ear, by the shattered breaths of “chanyeol - chanyeol, please, yes, more, chanyeol -- ”. baekhyun’s body is jerking forward with each movement and he’s begging for him, telling him he’s the only one who can make him feel so good, who can give this to him, who fills him up so well with his long, thick cock and before he knows it chanyeol’s coming over the curl of his fingers with a quiet snarl. he milks himself through it, grip tightening to squeeze out the last drops dribbling from the slit, a shuddering gasp breaking past his lips as his thumb slides over the swollen head.
he could stop there, but would baekhyun? what if he kept going, kept lifting those hips and sinking back down on him even after he’d come, riding the flushed stiffness of his cock before he got soft? he mimes the visions of his imagination with his palm though he knows baekhyun would be so much tighter, unable to bite back half-moans and whimpers from the oversensitivity flooding his nerves. it’s too much. he’s arching his hips up even as he’s trying to squirm away from his own touch, simultaneously craving more and needing desperately to stop. he hears himself pleading for mercy and somehow baekhyun’s name slips in there somewhere; in the darkness behind his closed eyes the phantom of the singer is there on top of him, teasing his overstimulated cock with no sign of letting up, magenta locks messy and slicked to his forehead with sweat -
the chorus of dang dang dang jolts him from his fantasies and his eyes snap open even as he groans with reluctance. every nerve screams for him to ignore his phone, but he knows it’s jongdae who needs him to pick him up from a late night party off campus, and he’d already agreed ahead of time. wiping off his come-streaked hand on a dirty t-shirt he needs to remind himself to throw in the laundry, he grabs his phone with the other hand and brings it to his ear.
“chanyeollie -- !”
“yeah, yeah, I know. give me five minutes.”
“okaaay.” jongdae sounds more than a little tipsy as he blows him a kiss over the receiver. “you’re the best. see you soon!” he really needs to think about a single next year.
it’s on his way down the stairs to the first door and the dorm parking lot, sweatpants and a t-shirt hanging off him (it’s 2am; who’s going to see him?) that he hears it. for a split second, he thinks he’s imagining things, but that’s definitely the sound of someone playing the piano in the lobby. who does that at two in the fucking morning? granted, it’s a saturday, but still! it’s been there for as long as he’s been living here, and he’d always thought the instrument was just for decoration. no one actually used it; it probably wasn’t even tuned. any music kids went to the actual music building to practice, where they could be guaranteed privacy and solitude in their concentration. the only time he’s ever heard any sound coming from it was that one day last year when -
he pauses midway down the steps.
baekhyun.
that’s where he recognizes him from. dear god. all along, it’s because the kid lives in his own fucking -- !
“hey!”
he must look like a deer caught in the headlights when his head snaps up, and suddenly he’s staring right into those dark, slightly downward-sloped eyes that had just been burning holes into his sexual fantasies five minutes ago. the shame of it slaps him in the face and he would stumble backwards if he wasn’t in the middle of the stairs. “huh?” holy shit had he just said huh? like an idiot? and why isn’t he dressed in something nicer, something that doesn’t make him look like a hobo? even jeans would’ve been better!
apparently embarrassed by the abruptness of his own groundless greeting, the boy -- it’s been how many weeks? his name is baekhyun! -- blushes. his cheeks definitely turn a little pink and he looks down a bit. what the hell - he’s a school-famous rockstar and he’s blushing? he’s not supposed to be cute too! “u-um, sorry. you’re - chanyeol, right? park chanyeol?”
he knows his name. jesus help him.
“uh . . . yeah.” more dumb one-word answers. he swears he knows his own name. (but apparently not when baekhyun is the one asking him.)
but he still looks a little discomforted and even fidgets a little with his hands, wringing those longer fingers together. “jongdae - well, he kind of told me about you. i mean, he told minseok, and then minseok told me. about you.”
chanyeol feels like he’s suddenly stepped into someplace apart from reality. or at least the reality he knows. this is too vivid to be a dream, right? it’s all happening too fast, but unlike in dreams he doesn’t get the conveniently placed background knowledge of the moment implanted already into his artificial memory. “minseok?” it’s all he can bring himself to say, when in reality he wants to say what the fuck jongdae told you about me?
“oh, our sound production guy. um, sorry, i thought you would know him. jongdae’s - i mean, he’s your friend, right?”
right now he’s toeing the line between friend and worst fucking enemy who chanyeol swears is trying to sabotage everything about his life, but - “yeah. yeah, he’s my friend.” finally, more than one word. he’s getting there.
his growing verbosity apparently encourages baekhyun, because he brightens up a little bit like a flower slowly opening its petals and his shoulders drop a little in relaxation. “oh, good. i was wondering -- ” the end of his statement is drowned out by another round of supreme team from chanyeol’s back pocket, making him nearly jump clean out of his skin. cursing under his breath, he digs out the intruding device even though he knows who’s calling and frowns at the stupid selfie jongdae had taken with his phone that’s set as his contact picture. stabbing the ignore button, he apologizes in a muffled voice that sounds clogged and distant to his ears before looking back to baekhyun, ears burning with humiliation.
“it’s okay,” he laughs, though (laughs, and his smile really is just that nice up close too). “wow, jongdae really has terrible timing, huh.”
you don’t even know the half of it. “yeah. what - what were you asking me?” he can’t help but be a little impatient; he swore, somewhere in the midst of dang dang dang, that he’d heard something about coffee.
“i was - i wanted to know maybe if you - uh, wanted to hang out sometime, maybe?” chanyeol feels all the blood in his veins freeze up. he thinks his heart stops for a second. “like, lunch someday, or coffee.”
“ - what.”
he would feel bad about the awkward embarrassment that comes over baekhyun’s face right then as he starts stammering an apology about this being a weird time to ask - two in the morning and all - but he doesn’t even hear any of it past the pounding in his ears. hang out with him? baekhyun wants to hang out with him? he even knows he exists? an insistent buzzing from his back pocket shoves him from his reverie again and he nearly throws his phone at the nearest wall. it’s a text this time.
chanyeollie where r u :( u said 5 min……..
then another one pops up right afterwards: stop jerking off to baekhyun and pick me up already :( :(
ears on fire again, he does the first thing he can think of and immediately shuts off his phone, praying that baekhyun hadn’t seen that (even though he couldn’t have, really). he’s going to kill jongdae later. it’s only when he’s staring at the black screen in his hand that he realizes there’s an uncomfortable silence in the air, and his eyes dart back up again. shit. what had he just said? “uh, sorry, i - yeah, i’d love to do that sometime.” he winces at himself; the words sound so fake after that long pause. “sorry, i just . . . ” never realized you even knew who i am and i was imagining you riding my dick ten minutes ago. “you’re just - so famous. why me?” well, that’s close enough.
baekhyun gets that bashful half smile like he’d been expecting this question, and shuffles a little on his feet. cute. “well, i wanted to ask you that day at the fansign - i saw you there. but you left so quickly. i thought maybe you had class or something and there were too many people.” chanyeol can’t believe his ears. he remembers he’d been standing near the back of the room, surrounded by swarms of people. all he can recall is the way baekhyun had smiled up at that girl - the thought, even now, curls his blood with jealousy. he’d seen him there? and then it comes back to him, how he’d turned so quickly and shoved his way out like he’d needed air, how he’d almost bumped into someone in his haste to leave. he must have looked so dumb.
“i - well, that’s not really why . . . but -- ” how can he tell him that he’d left because he couldn’t stand being one in a million? that the thought of just being a fan and nothing more filled him with such emptiness he couldn’t bear it? “i’d - love to hang out sometime. really. sorry, it’s just - like, really sudden . . . ”
“great.” that smile is back, and chanyeol notices that the corners of his eyes curve up a bit when he’s happy. he itches to reach out and pull him close; the tips of his fingers physically tremble, like an addict within reach of their coveted thing, just out of their grasp. “i’m free for lunch tomorrow. give me your number and i’ll text you?”
he can only nod. it sounds like a date. he’s asking for his number. it’s all unreal and he’s standing there for a few seconds, lost in the disbelief of it, before he realizes that ‘give me your number’ means yeah, i should actually give him my number. he stumbles through half of it before his brain, which has been bailing on him since the beginning of this conversation, decides to forsake him again and he has to awkwardly dig out his phone and look up his own damn number, apologizing what feels like a thousand times. but baekhyun only laughs, makes him feel like everything’s okay, and chanyeol watches him plug it into his phone under his name. “i’ll definitely text you.”
“okay.” chanyeol realizes the moment is over, now, and that it’s his cue to leave. but he doesn’t want to. it’s only the guilty reminder that he’d shut off his phone on jongdae that eventually persuades his feet to turn at last towards the door, the swivel of his body reluctantly following. sure enough, when he turns on his phone again, there are half a dozen new texts from his roommate at varying degrees of whininess. with a “see you later then” (tomorrow sounds too expectant, too eager, right?), he makes to head out, and only then does he remember what had struck him in the first place. “wait -- ”
halfway back to the piano, baekhyun turns again to look at him, eyebrows arched in query. “you - did you live here last year? i think you - i recognized you and - playing -- ” he stops, closing his eyes. he lets out a frustrated sigh at his own inability to talk. “you used to play the piano here, right? i think that was you.”
to his surprise, baekhyun looks flattered that he remembers. “yeah.” chanyeol will only later learn that last year had been before mamba kiss had gotten so popular, and baekhyun had been just a pudgy music major kid that no one paid attention to. no one would have looked twice at him then. “that was me. i like it late at night here on the weekends. everyone else is out, and the music building’s a bit of a walk. sometimes people even stop and listen, and, well, you get to know people that way. it’s how i met yixing, actually. in the band.”
he nods and turns away, but then stops again. “oh, and -- ” he blushes, but forces himself to keep going. last question, he swears. “wait, what did jongdae tell you about me?”
embarrassment sinks into the dregs of his stomach when baekhyun giggles a little - with jongdae, it can’t be anything good, that’s for sure. but even chanyeol is surprised when the response is “oh, just that you like me.” he’s been hit with too many things out of left field today, but this one is really the kicker. “well, he actually phrased it as you being addicted to me, but i didn’t want to say that in case it sounded creepy - which it doesn’t! i mean, i’m not saying you’re creepy. sorry.”
his phone buzzes again. no surprise, it’s littleshitdae. ok whatever pcy i’m staying over at junmyeon’s place then :( :( i’ll tell him u abandoned me
chanyeol sets his phone on silent, then, and jogs back up the few steps from the front door to the lobby. he feels oddly rejuvenated, suddenly brimming with a strange sense of triumph. all this time, baekhyun had known about him and he had just basically asked him out. no, not basically. knowing he liked him and then inviting him to lunch and coffee? that had to be a signal, right? “hey, actually? that song you were playing - can i watch you play?”
baekhyun’s smile as he nods and sits back down erases what remains of chanyeol’s regret. fuck jongdae; just for that, he doesn’t deserve to be chauffeured back to the dorm, anyway.