You Don't Love Me (Big Deal) - a Kai/Chanyeol fanfic - Ch. 3
Pairing: Kai/Chanyeol
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Angst, Unrequited Love
Word count: 2800+ for this chapter
Chapter 3/?
Notes: Accompanying fanmix here.
Also posted to AFF and AO3.
It should have ended there.
Jongin doesn’t call, or text, and Chanyeol stops looking at his phone with something that bordered on expectation after a few days, so it should have ended there.
It almost does. Chanyeol gets too busy to focus on much else in his life. He gets a call back from someone he left an application with, a theatre company owner who tells him that there’s an available spot open since one of her technicians had an accident with the ropes.
“He’s fine, fine, fine, nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about at all. The safety of our staff is of utmost importance, don’t worry, don’t worry, nothing of the sort will happen to you, I’m sure. On your CV you said you used to work for the theatre department at your college, yes? All sort of behind-the-scenes trickery and jiggery-pokery, yes? Perfect, perfect, perfect, when can you start?”
The woman at the other end of the phone gives Chanyeol little time to speak, and even less time to tell her that he may have beefed up his application a little (I mean, he had only helped out for a week on his alma mater’s production of Oklahoma, hardly something to brag about), but when she tells him that it’s cash in hand and that it’s only six hours a day, five days a week, he finds it hard to say no.
It’s tough work. There’s more to it than rope pulling when the cues dictate, or shining a spotlight on the stage when the music reaches a crescendo and on his first day Chanyeol finds himself scaling a rickety ladder to unhook a curtain that had gotten snagged on the rail. It wobbles, and tilts with every step and Chanyeol begins to think that maybe the money isn’t worth his life.
His fifth night there, there’s a problem with the audio. The actor on stage who had been praised by critics for his phenomenal singing skills suddenly began to croak and warble along with the orchestra when the AR suddenly came to a stop. Even under the lights and the heavy stage make-up, the actor’s face visibly heats as the audience begin to hurl abuse.
Chanyeol peers around the curtains and he saw that there was no-one in the audio booth, that the computers and decks were all going unmanned and that the actor was seconds away from storming off stage and calling an end to his entire career. He moved as fast as his legs would take him, taking long strides to the booth in order to boot up the recording again, and just like that, the audience are satisfied.
“I don’t get paid nearly enough for this.” Chanyeol whispers to no-one in particular, blowing his bangs out of his eyes. His phone began to vibrate in his back pocket, and Chanyeol almost forgets to exit the mic-heavy booth before he answers it.
“Do you hate your job?” comes the voice, thick with the faux tone of a tele-marketer trying to sell something down the line. “Do you loathe your current employer?”
“Baekhyun-“ Chanyeol begins, laughing.
“Look no further! Your dream job is right around the corner!”
“Baekhyun, what are you talking about?”
“Okay, so listen,” Baekhyun says, dropping the impersonation “I was talking to the manager of the Black Pearl last week when you were off gallivanting-“
“I wasn’t gallivanting.” Chanyeol interrupts.
“I’m trying to keep this PC, Channie, so listen. I was talking to him last week and he was saying he needs a new DJ, someone who can mess about with sound programmes and all that tech-stuff. You know, like you do. So are you in?”
“I just got this job, I can’t quit this early.”
“So don’t quit. Do both. Work the system. It’s a good offer, Chanyeol, you should think about it.”
“Did you do this for me or were you just looking for an excuse to go to that club more often?”
“Aha, well,” Baekhyun laughs down the phone, tone sheepish. “Two birds, you know? Does it matter? You get to do something a little less high risk for better money, and I get to use you for requests. It’s a solid deal.”
Chanyeol snorts softly. He shouldn’t have expected any less from Baekhyun, really. They had been friends since they were teenagers but sometimes Chanyeol thinks that’s because he’s the only one that ever put up with Baekhyun for more than five minutes.
“You’re not going to let me say no, are you.”
“Not a chance. So you’ll do it?”
“Yeah, I’ll do it.” Chanyeol says. “I’ll do it. But I can’t start this week.”
Baekhyun whoops down the phone and Chanyeol almost rolls his eyes, forgetting that his friend could not see him from the other end of the line.
Even from day one, Chanyeol prefers the job at the club more than the job at the theatre. Baekhyun was right, the pay was a lot better, and this way Chanyeol felt that his life was in safe hands. Not much danger behind the pre-owned DJ setup, at least not of the regular sort.
His hours are irregular, the boss had given him a fair amount of flexibility to fit in with his other job provided he could stay until a little before closing, so the crowd that Chanyeol saw on the floor changed every night he worked.
Sundays were the least hectic, the throng consisting of the unemployed mostly, or teenagers that had been lucky enough to come when security was lax. A lot of the regulars came for two or three hours before reluctantly leaving before the AM so they didn’t wander in to work or school the next day, kicking off their week with eye bags so deep they almost hit the floor.
Chanyeol was surprised to find that Wednesdays were almost as busy as the weekends proved to be.
“It’s stress-relief.” The boss, who Chanyeol later found out went by the name Minseok, told him.
Minseok hadn’t been what Chanyeol was expecting when Baekhyun had described him over the phone. He looked too young to be running a bar, with his round, dumpling-like face and boyish grin that showed off his gums. Chanyeol was shocked to find out that Minseok was two years older than himself.
“What?”
“Stress relief.” Minseok repeats, idly wiping the bar down. “It gets to the middle of the week and people are starting to get tense. So they come here, do what they have to do, and go to work the next day feeling a little easier.”
Chanyeol didn’t know about that. As far as he was concerned, going to clubs, especially places like this one, did the exact opposite. Still, maybe that was just him. Baekhyun had always told him that he got things a little backwards more often than not.
“Speaking of...” Minseok says, and this gets Chanyeol’s attention. Minseok’s chewing his lip like he’s not quite sure how to go about whatever it is he wants to say, but in the short time he’s been working at the Black Pearl, Chanyeol also knows that Minseok likes to make everyone’s business his business.
“Shoot.”
Minseok continues to wipe at the same area of the bar that he had been for the past fifteen minutes. “I’ve seen you with Kim Jongin once or twice.”
Chanyeol pops his mouth open, unsure why Minseok was bringing that up. “Twice, yeah. Why?”
Again Chanyeol can see Minseok struggling to go about this the right way in lieu of seeming desperate for information. “Is there something between you? More than stress relief, I mean.”
“No.” Chanyeol answers immediately. He scratches the back of his head under Minseok’s returning scrutiny. “Honestly. We uh, you know. We...fooled around a couple of times, but no. There’s nothing between us.” He finished, making air quotes half-heartedly.
Minseok visibly relaxes. “That’s good. Keep it that way.” Chanyeol almost opens his mouth to ask why, but then Minseok’s hand is in his face. “It’s not your business.”
Chanyeol almost asks if it’s Minseok’s business but thinks better of it. It wouldn’t do to go insulting the boss, even Chanyeol knew that.
He wanted to ask what Minseok had meant about Jongin, but he was right - it was none of Chanyeol’s business. He didn’t even think Jongin remembered his name. Hell, Chanyeol would have been surprised if Jongin had even remembered his face.
He comes in one night, of course, a Saturday just a few hours before closing. On one hand, it let Chanyeol know that Jongin had a life outside of the club scene, or at the very least he had a life outside of the Black Pearl. On the other hand, it almost meant that it was just Chanyeol’s dumb luck that he had run in to him those other times.
If he had known that someone like Jongin would prove to be impossible to get off of his mind, that thoughts of Jongin touching him and being touched by him got him through long shifts in the bathrooms of the theatre, then perhaps he would have never have gotten involved in the first place and would have made do with blurry memories of high school and college hook-ups and not-quite-partners.
How could the girls with soft thighs and long nails from his past match up with the sharpness of Jongin’s teeth and tongue now? How could the boys with the flat stomachs and tight grips ever pin him the way one look from Jongin could?
It was ridiculous, Chanyeol knew as much, but his libido wasn’t as quick to get the message so when Jongin strolled in with a tight t-shirt and even tighter trousers, who could blame Chanyeol for dropping a beat or two on the decks.
His steps are already unsteady and Minseok closes the hatch to the bar ten feet away extra loudly in order to get Chanyeol’s attention. He raises an eyebrow, and Chanyeol’s not entirely sure what it means, but whatever it is involves a whole lot of Minseok wanting Chanyeol to having nothing to do with Jongin.
Chanyeol grins, albeit a little lopsided and uncertain, raising his left hand with his fingers in an OK gesture.
He gets it. Stay away from Kim Jongin. Chanyeol can deal with that. He doesn’t understand it, but it’s clear that it’s his ass on the line if he goes against the boss’s orders, and whilst screwing around with Jongin is entirely appealing, although admittedly slightly damaging, having a bit of extra cash in his pocket is slightly more so.
Chanyeol doesn’t look at or for him for the rest of the night, keeping his eyes on his hand and keeping mistakes to a minimum. He’s getting the hang of this whole DJ thing, and speed bumps aside, it’s enjoyable enough to consider poking around for other positions.
When closing time comes around and the rabble start to file out of the doors in snapped high heels and scuffed second hand dress shoes, Chanyeol starts to close up the decks before stuffing the things that couldn’t be packed away in the store room.
“Lock up when you’re done, will you, Chanyeol?” Minseok calls from somewhere near the front, shutting the front door tight behind him mere seconds after Chanyeol hollers back his reply.
Chanyeol considers shooting a text to Baekhyun, but if he’s not out on a Saturday Chanyeol can place all his bets on his spending a night alone in his apartment with only his laptop for company, so that plan becomes a quick three steps of finishing up with the stock, locking the club, and going home.
Step one and two go off without a hitch, but it’s step three that trips Chanyeol up when he locks the back door and attempts to make his way to the front where the taxis are lined up like ants. There were no streetlights back here, and Chanyeol almost trips over a pair of feet attached to a figure kneeling in the alley.
He’ll wonder five minutes later if it was rude, but Chanyeol already had his fingers digging in his pocket for his phone, pressing a button on the side to cause the screen to light up and urge him to unlock.
Maybe the glow from his phone's backlight didn't help, but Jongin looked awful.
Chanyeol deduced that the vomit at his knees was his and his knuckles were scraped raw from propping himself up on the stone wall so he didn’t bash his head against it every time his stomach turned against him and he had to heave to empty it. Chanyeol didn’t know if Minseok’s Unofficial Rules counted outside the club, or counted in situations like this, so it was with all the tentativeness of a mouse in a minefield that he dared to open his mouth to ask if Jongin was alright.
“Fantastic” Jongin spits, literally, “fuck off.” Chanyeol scrunches up his nose.
“I’d believe you a whole lot more if you could stand up.” He says, shining his phone once more in the direction of Jongin’s face. “I’m guessing you can’t, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
Jongin found the energy to lift his head to glare in Chanyeol’s vague direction. He lets out an agitated hiss between his teeth.
“It’s you. Of course it’s you.” Whatever he was about to say next got swallowed up in another series of painful gags and Chanyeol made a split second decision before he lost his nerve.
He put his phone back in his pocket and then slips his hands underneath Jongin’s armpits. He was a lot heavier than he looked, Chanyeol realised, as he attempted to effectively manhandle him the short distance to the front street.
“Wh-what the fuck are you doing?” Jongin slurs, arching his shoulders in an attempt to break free. “Get off me.”
“Okay, so here’s the thing.” Chanyeol says. “One, if Minseok comes back here tomorrow and finds you unconscious, or dead, it’s going to be me that suffers because I’m the one that closed up. And two, I’d feel guilty for the rest of my life if I left you there to pass out or....die, so until you can actually walk more than three steps, you’re coming home with me. Again.”
“No I’m not.”
“Well you can’t really argue with me right now. Look, there’s a taxi right there, and we’re getting in it, alright? You can sleep whatever this-” Chanyeol waves a hand clumsily, almost dropping Jongin in the process, “whoops, sorry, sorry. Yeah, until you sleep whatever you’ve got in you off. The door will be open, you can leave whenever you want, but I’ve got a shower, and couch and heat and if you ask me, all that sounds a lot nicer than puking my guts up in the street.”
“I didn’t ask you, did I.” Jongin said, teeth ground so tight Chanyeol fears they were in danger of becoming power. Chanyeol balks slightly, but notes that Jongin is giving less resistance as he’s bundled in to the back of a taxi. He looks at Chanyeol like he’s the worst kind of dirt on the bottom of his shoe and mutters “I hate guys like you”, before promptly passing out with his cheek pressed up against the car window.
The taxi ride back to Chanyeol’s apartment feels a lot longer than it is in reality, and Chanyeol can’t help but to steal glance every few minutes. He tells himself it’s to make sure Jongin’s doing alright, that he’s still breathing and that his head isn’t being battered against the glass with every speed bump, but that’s only a half truth. The rest of it has more to do with the fact that Chanyeol can’t stop looking at him, despite his best attempts. Minseok’s not here to scold him for it, and Jongin’s not awake to dislike him for it, so Chanyeol takes every chance he has to map the soft curves of Jongin’s nose and mouth, and the sharp angles of his cheeks and jaw.
He looked a whole lot sweeter when he was asleep, and Chanyeol can’t help but think to himself as he’s manoeuvring barely conscious Jongin from a taxi in to his apartment whether he merely hated people, or if it was just something he reserved only for Chanyeol.
It made no sense either way, for he seemed to thrive in a social setting, and he hadn’t met Chanyeol enough times to find any real reason to dislike him so vehemently. Jongin was too multi-faceted for Chanyeol to comprehend in the early hours of the morning so after he gets his front door open with mild to moderate difficult, and after putting Jongin on the couch in such a way that he wasn’t in danger of choking in his sleep, Chanyeol put aside any notions of trying to understand him.
Besides, he’d only be gone by the time morning came.
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Angst, Unrequited Love
Word count: 2800+ for this chapter
Chapter 3/?
Notes: Accompanying fanmix here.
Also posted to AFF and AO3.
It should have ended there.
Jongin doesn’t call, or text, and Chanyeol stops looking at his phone with something that bordered on expectation after a few days, so it should have ended there.
It almost does. Chanyeol gets too busy to focus on much else in his life. He gets a call back from someone he left an application with, a theatre company owner who tells him that there’s an available spot open since one of her technicians had an accident with the ropes.
“He’s fine, fine, fine, nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about at all. The safety of our staff is of utmost importance, don’t worry, don’t worry, nothing of the sort will happen to you, I’m sure. On your CV you said you used to work for the theatre department at your college, yes? All sort of behind-the-scenes trickery and jiggery-pokery, yes? Perfect, perfect, perfect, when can you start?”
The woman at the other end of the phone gives Chanyeol little time to speak, and even less time to tell her that he may have beefed up his application a little (I mean, he had only helped out for a week on his alma mater’s production of Oklahoma, hardly something to brag about), but when she tells him that it’s cash in hand and that it’s only six hours a day, five days a week, he finds it hard to say no.
It’s tough work. There’s more to it than rope pulling when the cues dictate, or shining a spotlight on the stage when the music reaches a crescendo and on his first day Chanyeol finds himself scaling a rickety ladder to unhook a curtain that had gotten snagged on the rail. It wobbles, and tilts with every step and Chanyeol begins to think that maybe the money isn’t worth his life.
His fifth night there, there’s a problem with the audio. The actor on stage who had been praised by critics for his phenomenal singing skills suddenly began to croak and warble along with the orchestra when the AR suddenly came to a stop. Even under the lights and the heavy stage make-up, the actor’s face visibly heats as the audience begin to hurl abuse.
Chanyeol peers around the curtains and he saw that there was no-one in the audio booth, that the computers and decks were all going unmanned and that the actor was seconds away from storming off stage and calling an end to his entire career. He moved as fast as his legs would take him, taking long strides to the booth in order to boot up the recording again, and just like that, the audience are satisfied.
“I don’t get paid nearly enough for this.” Chanyeol whispers to no-one in particular, blowing his bangs out of his eyes. His phone began to vibrate in his back pocket, and Chanyeol almost forgets to exit the mic-heavy booth before he answers it.
“Do you hate your job?” comes the voice, thick with the faux tone of a tele-marketer trying to sell something down the line. “Do you loathe your current employer?”
“Baekhyun-“ Chanyeol begins, laughing.
“Look no further! Your dream job is right around the corner!”
“Baekhyun, what are you talking about?”
“Okay, so listen,” Baekhyun says, dropping the impersonation “I was talking to the manager of the Black Pearl last week when you were off gallivanting-“
“I wasn’t gallivanting.” Chanyeol interrupts.
“I’m trying to keep this PC, Channie, so listen. I was talking to him last week and he was saying he needs a new DJ, someone who can mess about with sound programmes and all that tech-stuff. You know, like you do. So are you in?”
“I just got this job, I can’t quit this early.”
“So don’t quit. Do both. Work the system. It’s a good offer, Chanyeol, you should think about it.”
“Did you do this for me or were you just looking for an excuse to go to that club more often?”
“Aha, well,” Baekhyun laughs down the phone, tone sheepish. “Two birds, you know? Does it matter? You get to do something a little less high risk for better money, and I get to use you for requests. It’s a solid deal.”
Chanyeol snorts softly. He shouldn’t have expected any less from Baekhyun, really. They had been friends since they were teenagers but sometimes Chanyeol thinks that’s because he’s the only one that ever put up with Baekhyun for more than five minutes.
“You’re not going to let me say no, are you.”
“Not a chance. So you’ll do it?”
“Yeah, I’ll do it.” Chanyeol says. “I’ll do it. But I can’t start this week.”
Baekhyun whoops down the phone and Chanyeol almost rolls his eyes, forgetting that his friend could not see him from the other end of the line.
Even from day one, Chanyeol prefers the job at the club more than the job at the theatre. Baekhyun was right, the pay was a lot better, and this way Chanyeol felt that his life was in safe hands. Not much danger behind the pre-owned DJ setup, at least not of the regular sort.
His hours are irregular, the boss had given him a fair amount of flexibility to fit in with his other job provided he could stay until a little before closing, so the crowd that Chanyeol saw on the floor changed every night he worked.
Sundays were the least hectic, the throng consisting of the unemployed mostly, or teenagers that had been lucky enough to come when security was lax. A lot of the regulars came for two or three hours before reluctantly leaving before the AM so they didn’t wander in to work or school the next day, kicking off their week with eye bags so deep they almost hit the floor.
Chanyeol was surprised to find that Wednesdays were almost as busy as the weekends proved to be.
“It’s stress-relief.” The boss, who Chanyeol later found out went by the name Minseok, told him.
Minseok hadn’t been what Chanyeol was expecting when Baekhyun had described him over the phone. He looked too young to be running a bar, with his round, dumpling-like face and boyish grin that showed off his gums. Chanyeol was shocked to find out that Minseok was two years older than himself.
“What?”
“Stress relief.” Minseok repeats, idly wiping the bar down. “It gets to the middle of the week and people are starting to get tense. So they come here, do what they have to do, and go to work the next day feeling a little easier.”
Chanyeol didn’t know about that. As far as he was concerned, going to clubs, especially places like this one, did the exact opposite. Still, maybe that was just him. Baekhyun had always told him that he got things a little backwards more often than not.
“Speaking of...” Minseok says, and this gets Chanyeol’s attention. Minseok’s chewing his lip like he’s not quite sure how to go about whatever it is he wants to say, but in the short time he’s been working at the Black Pearl, Chanyeol also knows that Minseok likes to make everyone’s business his business.
“Shoot.”
Minseok continues to wipe at the same area of the bar that he had been for the past fifteen minutes. “I’ve seen you with Kim Jongin once or twice.”
Chanyeol pops his mouth open, unsure why Minseok was bringing that up. “Twice, yeah. Why?”
Again Chanyeol can see Minseok struggling to go about this the right way in lieu of seeming desperate for information. “Is there something between you? More than stress relief, I mean.”
“No.” Chanyeol answers immediately. He scratches the back of his head under Minseok’s returning scrutiny. “Honestly. We uh, you know. We...fooled around a couple of times, but no. There’s nothing between us.” He finished, making air quotes half-heartedly.
Minseok visibly relaxes. “That’s good. Keep it that way.” Chanyeol almost opens his mouth to ask why, but then Minseok’s hand is in his face. “It’s not your business.”
Chanyeol almost asks if it’s Minseok’s business but thinks better of it. It wouldn’t do to go insulting the boss, even Chanyeol knew that.
He wanted to ask what Minseok had meant about Jongin, but he was right - it was none of Chanyeol’s business. He didn’t even think Jongin remembered his name. Hell, Chanyeol would have been surprised if Jongin had even remembered his face.
He comes in one night, of course, a Saturday just a few hours before closing. On one hand, it let Chanyeol know that Jongin had a life outside of the club scene, or at the very least he had a life outside of the Black Pearl. On the other hand, it almost meant that it was just Chanyeol’s dumb luck that he had run in to him those other times.
If he had known that someone like Jongin would prove to be impossible to get off of his mind, that thoughts of Jongin touching him and being touched by him got him through long shifts in the bathrooms of the theatre, then perhaps he would have never have gotten involved in the first place and would have made do with blurry memories of high school and college hook-ups and not-quite-partners.
How could the girls with soft thighs and long nails from his past match up with the sharpness of Jongin’s teeth and tongue now? How could the boys with the flat stomachs and tight grips ever pin him the way one look from Jongin could?
It was ridiculous, Chanyeol knew as much, but his libido wasn’t as quick to get the message so when Jongin strolled in with a tight t-shirt and even tighter trousers, who could blame Chanyeol for dropping a beat or two on the decks.
His steps are already unsteady and Minseok closes the hatch to the bar ten feet away extra loudly in order to get Chanyeol’s attention. He raises an eyebrow, and Chanyeol’s not entirely sure what it means, but whatever it is involves a whole lot of Minseok wanting Chanyeol to having nothing to do with Jongin.
Chanyeol grins, albeit a little lopsided and uncertain, raising his left hand with his fingers in an OK gesture.
He gets it. Stay away from Kim Jongin. Chanyeol can deal with that. He doesn’t understand it, but it’s clear that it’s his ass on the line if he goes against the boss’s orders, and whilst screwing around with Jongin is entirely appealing, although admittedly slightly damaging, having a bit of extra cash in his pocket is slightly more so.
Chanyeol doesn’t look at or for him for the rest of the night, keeping his eyes on his hand and keeping mistakes to a minimum. He’s getting the hang of this whole DJ thing, and speed bumps aside, it’s enjoyable enough to consider poking around for other positions.
When closing time comes around and the rabble start to file out of the doors in snapped high heels and scuffed second hand dress shoes, Chanyeol starts to close up the decks before stuffing the things that couldn’t be packed away in the store room.
“Lock up when you’re done, will you, Chanyeol?” Minseok calls from somewhere near the front, shutting the front door tight behind him mere seconds after Chanyeol hollers back his reply.
Chanyeol considers shooting a text to Baekhyun, but if he’s not out on a Saturday Chanyeol can place all his bets on his spending a night alone in his apartment with only his laptop for company, so that plan becomes a quick three steps of finishing up with the stock, locking the club, and going home.
Step one and two go off without a hitch, but it’s step three that trips Chanyeol up when he locks the back door and attempts to make his way to the front where the taxis are lined up like ants. There were no streetlights back here, and Chanyeol almost trips over a pair of feet attached to a figure kneeling in the alley.
He’ll wonder five minutes later if it was rude, but Chanyeol already had his fingers digging in his pocket for his phone, pressing a button on the side to cause the screen to light up and urge him to unlock.
Maybe the glow from his phone's backlight didn't help, but Jongin looked awful.
Chanyeol deduced that the vomit at his knees was his and his knuckles were scraped raw from propping himself up on the stone wall so he didn’t bash his head against it every time his stomach turned against him and he had to heave to empty it. Chanyeol didn’t know if Minseok’s Unofficial Rules counted outside the club, or counted in situations like this, so it was with all the tentativeness of a mouse in a minefield that he dared to open his mouth to ask if Jongin was alright.
“Fantastic” Jongin spits, literally, “fuck off.” Chanyeol scrunches up his nose.
“I’d believe you a whole lot more if you could stand up.” He says, shining his phone once more in the direction of Jongin’s face. “I’m guessing you can’t, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
Jongin found the energy to lift his head to glare in Chanyeol’s vague direction. He lets out an agitated hiss between his teeth.
“It’s you. Of course it’s you.” Whatever he was about to say next got swallowed up in another series of painful gags and Chanyeol made a split second decision before he lost his nerve.
He put his phone back in his pocket and then slips his hands underneath Jongin’s armpits. He was a lot heavier than he looked, Chanyeol realised, as he attempted to effectively manhandle him the short distance to the front street.
“Wh-what the fuck are you doing?” Jongin slurs, arching his shoulders in an attempt to break free. “Get off me.”
“Okay, so here’s the thing.” Chanyeol says. “One, if Minseok comes back here tomorrow and finds you unconscious, or dead, it’s going to be me that suffers because I’m the one that closed up. And two, I’d feel guilty for the rest of my life if I left you there to pass out or....die, so until you can actually walk more than three steps, you’re coming home with me. Again.”
“No I’m not.”
“Well you can’t really argue with me right now. Look, there’s a taxi right there, and we’re getting in it, alright? You can sleep whatever this-” Chanyeol waves a hand clumsily, almost dropping Jongin in the process, “whoops, sorry, sorry. Yeah, until you sleep whatever you’ve got in you off. The door will be open, you can leave whenever you want, but I’ve got a shower, and couch and heat and if you ask me, all that sounds a lot nicer than puking my guts up in the street.”
“I didn’t ask you, did I.” Jongin said, teeth ground so tight Chanyeol fears they were in danger of becoming power. Chanyeol balks slightly, but notes that Jongin is giving less resistance as he’s bundled in to the back of a taxi. He looks at Chanyeol like he’s the worst kind of dirt on the bottom of his shoe and mutters “I hate guys like you”, before promptly passing out with his cheek pressed up against the car window.
The taxi ride back to Chanyeol’s apartment feels a lot longer than it is in reality, and Chanyeol can’t help but to steal glance every few minutes. He tells himself it’s to make sure Jongin’s doing alright, that he’s still breathing and that his head isn’t being battered against the glass with every speed bump, but that’s only a half truth. The rest of it has more to do with the fact that Chanyeol can’t stop looking at him, despite his best attempts. Minseok’s not here to scold him for it, and Jongin’s not awake to dislike him for it, so Chanyeol takes every chance he has to map the soft curves of Jongin’s nose and mouth, and the sharp angles of his cheeks and jaw.
He looked a whole lot sweeter when he was asleep, and Chanyeol can’t help but think to himself as he’s manoeuvring barely conscious Jongin from a taxi in to his apartment whether he merely hated people, or if it was just something he reserved only for Chanyeol.
It made no sense either way, for he seemed to thrive in a social setting, and he hadn’t met Chanyeol enough times to find any real reason to dislike him so vehemently. Jongin was too multi-faceted for Chanyeol to comprehend in the early hours of the morning so after he gets his front door open with mild to moderate difficult, and after putting Jongin on the couch in such a way that he wasn’t in danger of choking in his sleep, Chanyeol put aside any notions of trying to understand him.
Besides, he’d only be gone by the time morning came.