I'M A CANDLE BEFORE YOU for CHANSOOS
For: chansoos
Title: I'm a candle before you
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/D.O
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2879 Words
Summary: Kyungsoo is short and Chanyeol is tall, and this is only a problem at first.
Author's note: thanks so much to e for the beta-ing and hand holding, i couldn’t have done it without you, love!
Kyungsoo is short. He knows this. He’s known it for his entire life. He’s sick of people talking about it. He wakes up in the morning and feels the internal angst of being reduced to a few numbers on a chart in all aspects of his life. The worst part of all this, however, is that, for three years running, he’s been placed in the same class as Park Chanyeol. Chanyeol is so tall, that he is a literal titan (Kyungsoo thinks he looks a bit like one too, with his gollum ears and unsettlingly toothy smile).
Today marks the start of Kyungsoo’s final year of high school, and he is determined to, for once, not be made fun of for being Chanyeol’s sidekick, henchman, little twinky boyfriend. He gets up, throws on some clothes, and walks to school with a heaviness in his heart. Nothing ever goes well for Do Kyungsoo.
The subway ride to school is long and tedious. Kyungsoo lives on the other side of Seoul, so the commute is awful. His high school is one that specializes in music of all kinds, one of the only ones in Seoul that does, and Kyungsoo if he’s anything, is a perfectionist when comes to things like following his dreams, so he sits down and shuts up and bears with it.
About seven stops in, someone very tall walks through the sliding doors. Kyungsoo would be able to recognize those ears from five football fields away. This is a time that Do Kyungsoo uses his height to his advantage. He curls into himself as much as is socially acceptable. Chanyeol is the last person he wants to see when he hasn’t even had the time to microwave an instant coffee because of how fast he’d had to rush out of the house this morning.
Unfortunately, being tall, Chanyeol immediately spots him, and the empty seat next to him. Another thing about Park Chanyeol is that he really likes Do Kyungsoo. He almost bounces over to Kyungsoo, and Kyungsoo feels like dying.
“Kyungsoo-ah! Good morning!” Chanyeol is grinning so hard his teeth look like they’re part of one of those carnival games where you have to shoot them out one by one. Kyungsoo feels like doing that right about now, actually, that would be great. “How was your summer? Meet any cute girls?”
Kyungsoo chuckles with a mix of annoyance and nervousness. Girls aren’t exactly his type, but there’s no way he’s going to tell that to Park Chanyeol of all people.
“No, Chanyeol, I spent my summer practicing.”
“Oh yeah, fixing those vocal cracks, eh?” Chanyeol winks at him. Kyungsoo feels like ripping off his overly large, overly fluttery eyelids and selling them on the organ black market. I wonder how much eyelids go for, his are awfully nice. Kyungsoo doesn’t necessarily know where to find the organ black market, but he can figure that out later. He has contacts.
“Yes well,” Kyungsoo says curtly. “We can’t all be multi-instrumentalist prodigies, now can we?”
The train pulls into their station and Kyungsoo practically barrels through the crowded train to escape. He hopes he hasn’t unintentionally murdered any infants. He can almost hear the screams of innocent people as Chanyeol bustles out as well, probably crushing millions in the process.
Kyungsoo hops up the steps of the station as if he’s a rock that’s been perfectly skipped across a creek (in a way he has, across the vast creek of people that is Seoul). Lucky for him, the school is only about three blocks away from the station, because Kyungsoo is running late, as usual. He practically sprints his way to the main entrance, where a beehive of yellow uniforms has swarmed around the class lists. Needless to say, Kyungsoo approaches the list with trepidation at best.
He walks up to the part of the lists dedicated to the third-years, and is immediately flanked by Byun Baekhyun and Kim Jongdae, to his complete and utter dismay.
“Yo D.O!” Baekhyun’s voice is too shrill in Kyungsoo’s left ear. They all call him D.O here, ever since one of his vocal coaches the previous year gave them all stupid stage names and of course, of course, Kyungsoo’s had to be the one that stuck. Kyungsoo doesn’t really like it, but at this point he figures that there’s no point in complaining. “How was your summer, man?”
Kyungsoo had spent his summer in dark, cramped noraebang’s singing ballads until his throat bled and he couldn’t speak for days afterwards. The vocal cracks have dealt him nothing but bad cards in life. He has tried desperately to rid himself of them for years, but has never been successful. People ask Kyungsoo if his height bothers him, and the answer is always no. The vocal cracks always do.
Anyway, he ignores Baekhyun and checks the class list. His stomach drops when he’s Chanyeol’s name. He scans up the list with his eyes and when he sees his own he feels light-headed. Another year of this. Another years of the jeers and jabs and dreading coming to class every day for any other reason than to sing, because ultimately, all Kyungsoo wants to do is sing.
♪
“I’m sorry.” Chanyeol looks hurt and very serious. “I know you didn’t want to be in my class this year, Kyungsoo.” Kyungsoo feels his stomach flop against his will. Chanyeol is the only one who calls him Kyungsoo.
“It’s not like that, honestly.” Kyungsoo tries to rectify the situation. “It’s not you.”
Chanyeol raises and eyebrow in skepticism.
“Don’t you just…” Kyungsoo falters. “Get sick of them teasing us all the time?”
“I tend not to think about it.” Chanyeol smirks. “I like you Kyungsoo, I think you’re cool, and so honestly, what other people think doesn’t really factor into my opinion.”
Kyungsoo is dumbfounded. It’s not a love confession or anything, God knows Kyungsoo isn't prepared for that yet, but he finds himself disliking Park Chanyeol a little bit less that day.
♪
People still make fun of them now that they’re friends, that isn’t something that changes. If anything, it happens more often than before. Kyungsoo is still short, and Chanyeol is still tall, but it bothers him less now. What does bother him now, though, is that their class is preparing for the school’s annual winter showcase, and Kyungsoo can’t get the cracks out of his voice. Chanyeol isn’t the person to ask for this, because, although he plays every instrument under the sun--including the erhu, and who even knows what that is--(Chanyeol tells him later when they’re sprawled out in Kyungsoo’s bedroom, exhausted from practice, words being the only thing keeping them from drifting into half-consciousness, and he’s impressed. “Play it for me some time.” Kyungsoo had said.)
When Baekhyun offers to give Kyungsoo vocal lessons, at first, he’s embarrassed and indignant. Why should Byun Baekhyun of all people get to give him vocal lessons. If anybody is going to coach him, it should be Jongdae. When he thinks of Jongdae’s voice, he gets chills; it’s strong and stable and hits with a certain tone that stabs and twists at all the right places. He’s also a bit jealous, considering how although Jongdae has far less experience with vocal music than Kyungsoo, Jongdae’s voice never cracks. But, Jongdae is booked up, he tutors loads of freshmen each semester, so Kyungsoo is left with Baekhyun and a throat full of complaints.
Kyungsoo walks into class the morning before his first lesson with a petulant look on his face, he’s just been thinking of the smug look on Baekhyun’s face when he’d accepted his offer of help. Asshole, Kyungsoo thinks. Just because he has raw natural talent and a tone that everybody drools over doesn’t give him the right to act like such a dick about it. He trudges over to his desk and sets his backpack there with a haphazard toss. He looks over to the desk next to his and sees Chanyeol hunched over his own, scribbling away on a piece of loose-leaf. It looks like he’s composing something, using the lines as a very large, very wide staff. He walks around the perimeter of Chanyeol desk and leans on it so he’s nose to nose with Chanyeol.
“Hey, what are you working on?” Kyungsoo says, tone casual.
“N-Nothing!” Chanyeol jolts up from his chair in surprise, hugging his notebook protectively to his chest, the bewildered look on his face further emphasized by his large eyes and open mouth. Kyungsoo could almost call him cute like this. He doesn’t shudder at the thought like he used to. It’s a concept altogether foreign to him, finding Chanyeol attractive. Traits that he used to find gross and uninviting have suddenly become very appealing, he’d ruffle his hair if he could reach that high.
“What’s the big secret Chanyeol?” Baekhyun says, leaping up to grab the notebook from Chanyeol’s hands. Chanyeol leaps backwards, faster than Kyungsoo has ever seen him move, dropping the notebook to the ground in the process. It lays there, face up.
“Oh…” he hears Baekhyun say, sounding quiet and far more serious than Kyungsoo has ever heard him sound. Kyungsoo doesn’t dare look. Baekhyun picks up the notebook and hands it back to Chanyeol, and doesn’t say anything as he walks away.
“Did you see it?” Chanyeol says, voice shaking, looking more vulnerable than he has.
“I didn’t see anything.” Kyungsoo reaches out to touch Chanyeol’s shoulder, hoping his touch will provide some kind of small comfort. He feels a pang of something unidentifiable when Chanyeol shies away from his touch. “Hey, don’t worry about it, we all know how Baekhyun can be.”
“You promise you didn’t see anything?” Chanyeol stands, back stiff, eyes scared.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it babe.” Kyungsoo feels his chest seize at the realization of what he’s just said. Chanyeol is looking at him strangely, with an expression on his face that Kyungsoo can’t place. Kyungsoo quickly segues, “Um, anyway, you heard Baekhyun is giving me vocal lessons, right? Shit’s going to suck.”
“I know, but just give him a chance. Baek may be an asshole sometimes, but he’s actually a pretty good teacher.” Chanyeol flows into the subject change with ease, eager to escape any previous awkwardness.
“Oh? Have you been a pupil of his in the past?” Kyungsoo looks at Chanyeol, perplexed.
“He may have given me vocal lessons once or twice,” Chanyeol says with an embarrassed shrug.
“Hey, you never told me you sing.” Kyungsoo’s mind is suddenly flooded with thoughts of how Chanyeol’s deep rumble of a voice would sound meandering through a folk song.
“I’m nothing too special. I’ve only had a few lessons, and my voice is really only suited to a few styles of music.” Chanyeol is blushing now, the tips of his crinkly ears bright pink and reddening by the second.
“I’m sure you’re great. You’re great at everything you do.” And he is. He’s been praised ever since their Freshmen year for being somewhat of a prodigy with instruments. Kyungsoo has no doubt that he can sing just as well.
“You really think so?” He looks almost shy, now.
“I think you can do anything.” Kyungsoo reaches up to put a supportive arm around Chanyeol’s shoulder.
And Chanyeol smiles bigger than he’s ever seen him smile before (and that’s quite a feat).
♪
The winter showcase draws closer still, and with two weeks remaining until curtain, the school is in a frenzy. Baekhyun has proven to be a better teacher than Kyungsoo anticipated, and he pushes him hard. Kyungsoo has literally practiced himself sick, ad libbing and perfecting his vibrato until hours when nobody should be awake. He’s lying in bed, now, and kicking himself for wasting precious practice time. He’s lost his voice, and feels a creeping dread in his stomach that he just can’t shake.
By the third day of his self-quarantine, he’s practically pulling his hair out. So when he hears someone trying to buzz themselves up into his apartment, he’s irritated, to say the least. But it all fades when he sees Chanyeol on the tiny security screen, grinning and holding a plastic bag in his hands. Kyungsoo almost jams his finger pressing the button to unlock the door.
Chanyeol bounds into his apartment and wraps Kyungsoo into a tight hug, holding him tight against his chest. This is extra nice for Kyungsoo, who is currently plagued with terrible chills.
“Hey, can we stay like this for a bit? I’m really cold,” Kyungsoo says. He knows that, on a normal day, this would be weird, but quite frankly, he’s too freezing and feverish to care.
“Oh, um-- okay!” Chanyeol suddenly becomes even warmer, cheeks flushed red. He pulls away after a beat and hold up the bag Kyungsoo had seen earlier. “I brought you some juk!” Kyungsoo feels warmth coiling in his chest.
They curl together under a blanket, Kyungsoo’s short legs tangled with Chanyeol’s longer ones, and eat their juk, and Kyungsoo falls fast asleep on Chanyeol’s shoulder and tries not to think about what this means.
Later, when he wakes up, he sees Chanyeol huddled into himself, burrowed into the corner of the couch, scribbling in his notebook again. Probably composing, Kyungsoo thinks. He decides not to press the issue.
Chanyeol leaves later that night, but only after tucking Kyungsoo in and threatening to send Baekhyun over if he doesn’t rest. Kyungsoo sleeps well that night, and dreams of deep voices singing him further into sleep.
♪
It’s the night of the winter performance, and Kyungsoo is more nervous than he’s ever been. Baekhyun and Jongdae give him a bone-crushing hug and a reassuring clap on the shoulder in exactly that order, but that’s not enough for him, not from the fan-favorite Byun Baekhyun and the unflappable Kim Jongdae. They don’t know what it’s like to fuck up in front of loads of people, and Kyungsoo feels nothing but that same sinking feeling he’s felt whenever he goes on stage for months now. Chanyeol approaches him, now, and he’s carrying a bouquet of roses.
“Consider these a good luck gift. Broses.” Chanyeol winks at him. Kyungsoo feels the sinking feeling in his stomach dig even lower into his stomach. He and Chanyeol are friends.
“Yeah, good luck to you too, Chanyeol.” He hugs him, quick and brief, before he hears the PA system calling him to the stage; and then, everything from there is white light and adrenaline, cheering crowds and throwing his voice into the ocean of a crowd like bloody bait, and hoping no sharks will circle him and rip him further to shreds. He exits the stage shaking and sweaty, everything a blur. Someone walks him to his reserved seat in the crowd, but he doesn’t remember who. He’s still in his post-stage haze.
Baekhyun and Jongdae do amazingly, as expected. Baekhyun plays a rock ballad on the piano, pretty fingers pressing prettier sounds into the air. Jongdae moves seventy-five percent of the crowd to tears with his rendition of an Urban Zakapa song, and when Kyungsoo looks to his left where Baekhyun has taken a seat, he swears he sees a tear rolling down his cheek. He makes a mental note to rib him about this later.
Chanyeol takes the stage and Kyungsoo can feel his heart thudding in his chest. He’s clad head to toe in a full tux and pants. He holds in his hands a small violin-like instrument. He sits down on the chair that was placed center stage for him and begins to play. The song starts off slow and sad, almost wistful, meanders to and fro with a sort of listlessness that nearly moves him to tears. It reminds him of his first two years at the school, full of anger and hopelessness, unsure of how to carry himself or how to deal with the things that knock him flat on his face. Towards the middle of the song, it picks up. It becomes sweeter, notes getting shorter but somehow more pronounced, crisp, bright. At the end, the notes swell, a throat closing up right before a broken sob, into one perfect crescendo. Tears are streaking down his face before he can stop them. Chanyeol bows and leaves the stage with a brisk walk. The M.C. returns to the stage.
“That was our very own Park Chanyeol on the erhu, with an original composition entitled ‘Kyungsoo’.”
Kyungsoo is running out of the theater before the next performer is announced. He finds Chanyeol exactly where expects to, sitting on a bench in the courtyard, except this time, he’s playing his erhu. He looks up at the sound of Kyungsoo’s footfalls on the pavement.
“Hey.” Kyungsoo shoots Chanyeol a tentative smile.
“Hey.”
Kyungsoo walks up to the bench, and when kisses Chanyeol, for once, he is the one to lean down.
♪
They go to noraebang a few days later, and Kyungsoo finally gets to hear Chanyeol sing. He’s right, he’s only suited to a few genres, but Kyungsoo loves it all the same. They sing together.
And Kyungsoo’s voice doesn’t crack.
Final Author's note: title is from an im jae bum song.
Title: I'm a candle before you
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/D.O
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2879 Words
Summary: Kyungsoo is short and Chanyeol is tall, and this is only a problem at first.
Author's note: thanks so much to e for the beta-ing and hand holding, i couldn’t have done it without you, love!
Kyungsoo is short. He knows this. He’s known it for his entire life. He’s sick of people talking about it. He wakes up in the morning and feels the internal angst of being reduced to a few numbers on a chart in all aspects of his life. The worst part of all this, however, is that, for three years running, he’s been placed in the same class as Park Chanyeol. Chanyeol is so tall, that he is a literal titan (Kyungsoo thinks he looks a bit like one too, with his gollum ears and unsettlingly toothy smile).
Today marks the start of Kyungsoo’s final year of high school, and he is determined to, for once, not be made fun of for being Chanyeol’s sidekick, henchman, little twinky boyfriend. He gets up, throws on some clothes, and walks to school with a heaviness in his heart. Nothing ever goes well for Do Kyungsoo.
The subway ride to school is long and tedious. Kyungsoo lives on the other side of Seoul, so the commute is awful. His high school is one that specializes in music of all kinds, one of the only ones in Seoul that does, and Kyungsoo if he’s anything, is a perfectionist when comes to things like following his dreams, so he sits down and shuts up and bears with it.
About seven stops in, someone very tall walks through the sliding doors. Kyungsoo would be able to recognize those ears from five football fields away. This is a time that Do Kyungsoo uses his height to his advantage. He curls into himself as much as is socially acceptable. Chanyeol is the last person he wants to see when he hasn’t even had the time to microwave an instant coffee because of how fast he’d had to rush out of the house this morning.
Unfortunately, being tall, Chanyeol immediately spots him, and the empty seat next to him. Another thing about Park Chanyeol is that he really likes Do Kyungsoo. He almost bounces over to Kyungsoo, and Kyungsoo feels like dying.
“Kyungsoo-ah! Good morning!” Chanyeol is grinning so hard his teeth look like they’re part of one of those carnival games where you have to shoot them out one by one. Kyungsoo feels like doing that right about now, actually, that would be great. “How was your summer? Meet any cute girls?”
Kyungsoo chuckles with a mix of annoyance and nervousness. Girls aren’t exactly his type, but there’s no way he’s going to tell that to Park Chanyeol of all people.
“No, Chanyeol, I spent my summer practicing.”
“Oh yeah, fixing those vocal cracks, eh?” Chanyeol winks at him. Kyungsoo feels like ripping off his overly large, overly fluttery eyelids and selling them on the organ black market. I wonder how much eyelids go for, his are awfully nice. Kyungsoo doesn’t necessarily know where to find the organ black market, but he can figure that out later. He has contacts.
“Yes well,” Kyungsoo says curtly. “We can’t all be multi-instrumentalist prodigies, now can we?”
The train pulls into their station and Kyungsoo practically barrels through the crowded train to escape. He hopes he hasn’t unintentionally murdered any infants. He can almost hear the screams of innocent people as Chanyeol bustles out as well, probably crushing millions in the process.
Kyungsoo hops up the steps of the station as if he’s a rock that’s been perfectly skipped across a creek (in a way he has, across the vast creek of people that is Seoul). Lucky for him, the school is only about three blocks away from the station, because Kyungsoo is running late, as usual. He practically sprints his way to the main entrance, where a beehive of yellow uniforms has swarmed around the class lists. Needless to say, Kyungsoo approaches the list with trepidation at best.
He walks up to the part of the lists dedicated to the third-years, and is immediately flanked by Byun Baekhyun and Kim Jongdae, to his complete and utter dismay.
“Yo D.O!” Baekhyun’s voice is too shrill in Kyungsoo’s left ear. They all call him D.O here, ever since one of his vocal coaches the previous year gave them all stupid stage names and of course, of course, Kyungsoo’s had to be the one that stuck. Kyungsoo doesn’t really like it, but at this point he figures that there’s no point in complaining. “How was your summer, man?”
Kyungsoo had spent his summer in dark, cramped noraebang’s singing ballads until his throat bled and he couldn’t speak for days afterwards. The vocal cracks have dealt him nothing but bad cards in life. He has tried desperately to rid himself of them for years, but has never been successful. People ask Kyungsoo if his height bothers him, and the answer is always no. The vocal cracks always do.
Anyway, he ignores Baekhyun and checks the class list. His stomach drops when he’s Chanyeol’s name. He scans up the list with his eyes and when he sees his own he feels light-headed. Another year of this. Another years of the jeers and jabs and dreading coming to class every day for any other reason than to sing, because ultimately, all Kyungsoo wants to do is sing.
♪
“I’m sorry.” Chanyeol looks hurt and very serious. “I know you didn’t want to be in my class this year, Kyungsoo.” Kyungsoo feels his stomach flop against his will. Chanyeol is the only one who calls him Kyungsoo.
“It’s not like that, honestly.” Kyungsoo tries to rectify the situation. “It’s not you.”
Chanyeol raises and eyebrow in skepticism.
“Don’t you just…” Kyungsoo falters. “Get sick of them teasing us all the time?”
“I tend not to think about it.” Chanyeol smirks. “I like you Kyungsoo, I think you’re cool, and so honestly, what other people think doesn’t really factor into my opinion.”
Kyungsoo is dumbfounded. It’s not a love confession or anything, God knows Kyungsoo isn't prepared for that yet, but he finds himself disliking Park Chanyeol a little bit less that day.
♪
People still make fun of them now that they’re friends, that isn’t something that changes. If anything, it happens more often than before. Kyungsoo is still short, and Chanyeol is still tall, but it bothers him less now. What does bother him now, though, is that their class is preparing for the school’s annual winter showcase, and Kyungsoo can’t get the cracks out of his voice. Chanyeol isn’t the person to ask for this, because, although he plays every instrument under the sun--including the erhu, and who even knows what that is--(Chanyeol tells him later when they’re sprawled out in Kyungsoo’s bedroom, exhausted from practice, words being the only thing keeping them from drifting into half-consciousness, and he’s impressed. “Play it for me some time.” Kyungsoo had said.)
When Baekhyun offers to give Kyungsoo vocal lessons, at first, he’s embarrassed and indignant. Why should Byun Baekhyun of all people get to give him vocal lessons. If anybody is going to coach him, it should be Jongdae. When he thinks of Jongdae’s voice, he gets chills; it’s strong and stable and hits with a certain tone that stabs and twists at all the right places. He’s also a bit jealous, considering how although Jongdae has far less experience with vocal music than Kyungsoo, Jongdae’s voice never cracks. But, Jongdae is booked up, he tutors loads of freshmen each semester, so Kyungsoo is left with Baekhyun and a throat full of complaints.
Kyungsoo walks into class the morning before his first lesson with a petulant look on his face, he’s just been thinking of the smug look on Baekhyun’s face when he’d accepted his offer of help. Asshole, Kyungsoo thinks. Just because he has raw natural talent and a tone that everybody drools over doesn’t give him the right to act like such a dick about it. He trudges over to his desk and sets his backpack there with a haphazard toss. He looks over to the desk next to his and sees Chanyeol hunched over his own, scribbling away on a piece of loose-leaf. It looks like he’s composing something, using the lines as a very large, very wide staff. He walks around the perimeter of Chanyeol desk and leans on it so he’s nose to nose with Chanyeol.
“Hey, what are you working on?” Kyungsoo says, tone casual.
“N-Nothing!” Chanyeol jolts up from his chair in surprise, hugging his notebook protectively to his chest, the bewildered look on his face further emphasized by his large eyes and open mouth. Kyungsoo could almost call him cute like this. He doesn’t shudder at the thought like he used to. It’s a concept altogether foreign to him, finding Chanyeol attractive. Traits that he used to find gross and uninviting have suddenly become very appealing, he’d ruffle his hair if he could reach that high.
“What’s the big secret Chanyeol?” Baekhyun says, leaping up to grab the notebook from Chanyeol’s hands. Chanyeol leaps backwards, faster than Kyungsoo has ever seen him move, dropping the notebook to the ground in the process. It lays there, face up.
“Oh…” he hears Baekhyun say, sounding quiet and far more serious than Kyungsoo has ever heard him sound. Kyungsoo doesn’t dare look. Baekhyun picks up the notebook and hands it back to Chanyeol, and doesn’t say anything as he walks away.
“Did you see it?” Chanyeol says, voice shaking, looking more vulnerable than he has.
“I didn’t see anything.” Kyungsoo reaches out to touch Chanyeol’s shoulder, hoping his touch will provide some kind of small comfort. He feels a pang of something unidentifiable when Chanyeol shies away from his touch. “Hey, don’t worry about it, we all know how Baekhyun can be.”
“You promise you didn’t see anything?” Chanyeol stands, back stiff, eyes scared.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it babe.” Kyungsoo feels his chest seize at the realization of what he’s just said. Chanyeol is looking at him strangely, with an expression on his face that Kyungsoo can’t place. Kyungsoo quickly segues, “Um, anyway, you heard Baekhyun is giving me vocal lessons, right? Shit’s going to suck.”
“I know, but just give him a chance. Baek may be an asshole sometimes, but he’s actually a pretty good teacher.” Chanyeol flows into the subject change with ease, eager to escape any previous awkwardness.
“Oh? Have you been a pupil of his in the past?” Kyungsoo looks at Chanyeol, perplexed.
“He may have given me vocal lessons once or twice,” Chanyeol says with an embarrassed shrug.
“Hey, you never told me you sing.” Kyungsoo’s mind is suddenly flooded with thoughts of how Chanyeol’s deep rumble of a voice would sound meandering through a folk song.
“I’m nothing too special. I’ve only had a few lessons, and my voice is really only suited to a few styles of music.” Chanyeol is blushing now, the tips of his crinkly ears bright pink and reddening by the second.
“I’m sure you’re great. You’re great at everything you do.” And he is. He’s been praised ever since their Freshmen year for being somewhat of a prodigy with instruments. Kyungsoo has no doubt that he can sing just as well.
“You really think so?” He looks almost shy, now.
“I think you can do anything.” Kyungsoo reaches up to put a supportive arm around Chanyeol’s shoulder.
And Chanyeol smiles bigger than he’s ever seen him smile before (and that’s quite a feat).
♪
The winter showcase draws closer still, and with two weeks remaining until curtain, the school is in a frenzy. Baekhyun has proven to be a better teacher than Kyungsoo anticipated, and he pushes him hard. Kyungsoo has literally practiced himself sick, ad libbing and perfecting his vibrato until hours when nobody should be awake. He’s lying in bed, now, and kicking himself for wasting precious practice time. He’s lost his voice, and feels a creeping dread in his stomach that he just can’t shake.
By the third day of his self-quarantine, he’s practically pulling his hair out. So when he hears someone trying to buzz themselves up into his apartment, he’s irritated, to say the least. But it all fades when he sees Chanyeol on the tiny security screen, grinning and holding a plastic bag in his hands. Kyungsoo almost jams his finger pressing the button to unlock the door.
Chanyeol bounds into his apartment and wraps Kyungsoo into a tight hug, holding him tight against his chest. This is extra nice for Kyungsoo, who is currently plagued with terrible chills.
“Hey, can we stay like this for a bit? I’m really cold,” Kyungsoo says. He knows that, on a normal day, this would be weird, but quite frankly, he’s too freezing and feverish to care.
“Oh, um-- okay!” Chanyeol suddenly becomes even warmer, cheeks flushed red. He pulls away after a beat and hold up the bag Kyungsoo had seen earlier. “I brought you some juk!” Kyungsoo feels warmth coiling in his chest.
They curl together under a blanket, Kyungsoo’s short legs tangled with Chanyeol’s longer ones, and eat their juk, and Kyungsoo falls fast asleep on Chanyeol’s shoulder and tries not to think about what this means.
Later, when he wakes up, he sees Chanyeol huddled into himself, burrowed into the corner of the couch, scribbling in his notebook again. Probably composing, Kyungsoo thinks. He decides not to press the issue.
Chanyeol leaves later that night, but only after tucking Kyungsoo in and threatening to send Baekhyun over if he doesn’t rest. Kyungsoo sleeps well that night, and dreams of deep voices singing him further into sleep.
♪
It’s the night of the winter performance, and Kyungsoo is more nervous than he’s ever been. Baekhyun and Jongdae give him a bone-crushing hug and a reassuring clap on the shoulder in exactly that order, but that’s not enough for him, not from the fan-favorite Byun Baekhyun and the unflappable Kim Jongdae. They don’t know what it’s like to fuck up in front of loads of people, and Kyungsoo feels nothing but that same sinking feeling he’s felt whenever he goes on stage for months now. Chanyeol approaches him, now, and he’s carrying a bouquet of roses.
“Consider these a good luck gift. Broses.” Chanyeol winks at him. Kyungsoo feels the sinking feeling in his stomach dig even lower into his stomach. He and Chanyeol are friends.
“Yeah, good luck to you too, Chanyeol.” He hugs him, quick and brief, before he hears the PA system calling him to the stage; and then, everything from there is white light and adrenaline, cheering crowds and throwing his voice into the ocean of a crowd like bloody bait, and hoping no sharks will circle him and rip him further to shreds. He exits the stage shaking and sweaty, everything a blur. Someone walks him to his reserved seat in the crowd, but he doesn’t remember who. He’s still in his post-stage haze.
Baekhyun and Jongdae do amazingly, as expected. Baekhyun plays a rock ballad on the piano, pretty fingers pressing prettier sounds into the air. Jongdae moves seventy-five percent of the crowd to tears with his rendition of an Urban Zakapa song, and when Kyungsoo looks to his left where Baekhyun has taken a seat, he swears he sees a tear rolling down his cheek. He makes a mental note to rib him about this later.
Chanyeol takes the stage and Kyungsoo can feel his heart thudding in his chest. He’s clad head to toe in a full tux and pants. He holds in his hands a small violin-like instrument. He sits down on the chair that was placed center stage for him and begins to play. The song starts off slow and sad, almost wistful, meanders to and fro with a sort of listlessness that nearly moves him to tears. It reminds him of his first two years at the school, full of anger and hopelessness, unsure of how to carry himself or how to deal with the things that knock him flat on his face. Towards the middle of the song, it picks up. It becomes sweeter, notes getting shorter but somehow more pronounced, crisp, bright. At the end, the notes swell, a throat closing up right before a broken sob, into one perfect crescendo. Tears are streaking down his face before he can stop them. Chanyeol bows and leaves the stage with a brisk walk. The M.C. returns to the stage.
“That was our very own Park Chanyeol on the erhu, with an original composition entitled ‘Kyungsoo’.”
Kyungsoo is running out of the theater before the next performer is announced. He finds Chanyeol exactly where expects to, sitting on a bench in the courtyard, except this time, he’s playing his erhu. He looks up at the sound of Kyungsoo’s footfalls on the pavement.
“Hey.” Kyungsoo shoots Chanyeol a tentative smile.
“Hey.”
Kyungsoo walks up to the bench, and when kisses Chanyeol, for once, he is the one to lean down.
♪
They go to noraebang a few days later, and Kyungsoo finally gets to hear Chanyeol sing. He’s right, he’s only suited to a few genres, but Kyungsoo loves it all the same. They sing together.
And Kyungsoo’s voice doesn’t crack.
Final Author's note: title is from an im jae bum song.