#22 | If You Want To Go Fast, Go Alone (1/2) | BaekChen
Prompt #: 22
Title: if you want to go fast, go alone
Pairing/Main character(s): baekchen, soochen, so many mentions of sutao
Rating: pg-13
Word Count: 13,211
Warning(s): none!
Summary: When did they stop talking? Why? What if they still talked? These are the thoughts on Jongdae's mind at 3 in the morning, in the middle of reading 2-star romance novel Seaside Treasure 2: Electric Love and Electric Eels.
Author's Note: I hope you enjoy it! This was so much fun to write :) Thank you to my beta reader M for making my life 1000% easier!!
It hits Jongdae one day that he is a very lonely person.
He has friends, he has Jongin, but he lives alone. He doesn’t own any animals. Doesn’t have a boyfriend. Normally when he gets home, he’s too tired to even put on the TV, so his house is silent for the majority of the day. It’s a weird realization, one that takes him out of his day. Out of his week. It’s hard to get out of bed in the morning when you don’t have much of a reason to.
It’s a weird kind of numbness that settles around him, and he hates it. He hates laying in his bed, but he doesn’t have the energy to read or watch a movie. He can’t find it in himself to even put on any music, because he just gets tired of listening halfway through the song, so what’s the point?
Jongdae does find it in himself to call Jongin, and searches amongst his pillows until he finds his phone- which is dead, of course, so he briefly considers giving up before he rolls over and finds his charging cord. He patiently waits until it turns back on, and he ignores all of the angry red pop-ups on every other app to dial his brother.
Jongin picks up and before he can even say hello, Jongdae speaks. “Jongin,” he pauses, and Jongin waits, “I’m sad.” It’s the simplest explanation and Jongin will understand.
“Why?” Jongdae can hear the clatter of the cafe behind him.
“Oh, are you working? I can call you later, I didn’t mean to-”
“No, I’m doing homework. What’s wrong?”
Jongdae shifts uncomfortably in his bed and pulls the covers over his head. “Um, that’s part of the problem. I don’t know. I’m just… sad.” And lonely, and in need of two good meals and a shower.
“Ahh.” Jongin says. He’s quiet for a moment before he continues. “When do you work next?”
“Tomorrow, opening shift.” It’s 1 in the afternoon, the whole day’s already gone. Wasting his time seems to be a prevailing theme.
“Mmm, okay, one sec.” Jongdae picks at his nails, the only thing he can hear is Jongin’s breath on the speaker.. “Okay, Luhan is letting me take off early today so I can take you to dinner.” They both know Jongdae will pay if they go out, but he can’t find it in him to resent Jongin for that. “And we can cry together or something, but you have to get out of your house and away from the store.”
Jongdae whines. “Do we have to? We can just get take out and eat at mine… We can watch a movie, you can bring the dogs over.”
“Shut up, we’re going out.” Jongin says.
“Wait so Luhan’s letting you off early? Meaning you’re working right now and you lied to me?”
“Yep.”
“Hey, you-” Jongin hangs up on him before he can finish yelling.
Well, Jongdae has no idea when Jongin will be picking him up or where he will be taking him.
He pulls himself out of bed and heads to the bathroom to shower.
☆
“Morning, Mrs. Jung. Looking for anything specific today?” He smiles at his favorite and longest customer, an old lady who’d been coming to the store since Jongdae’s dad had first opened it. She would stop in once or twice a week, although much less frequently as of recent, buying books for family or friends or anyone at all. She’s half Jongdae’s size, and swallowed by the sweater she’s wearing on a day that doesn’t seem cold enough to warrant it.
“Actually, I was wondering about donating some books.” She says.
“Really? Giving up some of your precious dragon’s hoard?” He teases.
Mrs. Jung’s smile is small but nice. “I’m going to be moving in with my son in a few weeks and I’m afraid he just doesn’t have the room.” She sighs. “A shame, Lord knows he could stand to read a few more books.”
“Well, I’m sure any and all books you’d want to give would be in great shape. I’ll even stop by to pick them up, if you would prefer it.” Jongdae goes back to working while they talk, pricing some moderately used paperback romance novels.
“I would!” She grabs Jongdae’s upper arm. “I have to get some food in you, you’re getting too thin.” They both laugh. Mrs. Jung looks at Jongdae and he can see she’s having the same kind of day he is. “Well,” she continues, “have you thought about that date with my niece yet?”
Ahhh, he’d forgotten. “Yes,” he lies. “I just don’t have the time.”
She snorts, “don’t you humor me, I can see it in your eyes it hasn’t crossed your mind once.”
“You caught me.” Jongdae presses a $1.99 sticker onto Forgive My Fins.
“How are you supposed to give me godchildren at this rate, Jongdae?” Mrs. Jung shakes her head. “At your age, and you’ve never had a girlfriend.” She scolds him.
So he hadn’t come out to her- fine, whatever. She’d probably be accepting but weird about it, and try to set Jongdae up with all of her nephews, gay or not.
“You don’t want to end up like me, alone in your golden years.” She’s still just teasing, but Jongdae finds himself very close to replying ”I’ll just marry Baekhyun”before he catches himself. Where are these thoughts coming from???
“You’re right, there can’t be a much worse fate than spending every day, all day reading.” He laughs, nervously, because why the hell was he thinking about Baekhyun?
Mrs. Jung waggles her hand at him. “Speaking of, I’m running low on reading material. I’ll let you go back to work, Jongdae. Think about saying yes, she’s pretty.” And Mrs. Jung disappears somewhere between mystery and drama.
Jongdae spends the rest of the day trying to figure out why he would think about marrying Baekhyun as such a definite act.
☆
“You’ve recently made your debut as an actor in the web drama, Dream Girl. What was it like on set?”
“I’ll be honest, I was so nervous at first! Everyone, cast and crew, were super nice and helpful though.”
“I’m glad! How was working with Kim Taeyeon? We’ve heard you’re a fan~”
“I mean, my love interest was played by Kim Taeyeon. As a fan, that’s like… A dream come true, pun unintended. She was a total angel, and so patient with me when I messed up or forgot my lines.”
“I’ve heard excellent things about her.”
“It’s all true, probably. She’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”
“Could you give us a summary of the drama?”
“Basically, my character, a student working his way through college at a convenience store, keeps having dreams about this beautiful girl, played by Taeyeon. In a different world, she is a wealthy pianist who is all alone, dreaming about him. Then, due to a freak thunderstorm, he’s transported into her universe- a universe where everything is gray until you find your soulmate. I won’t share anything else, in case anyone listening hasn’t yet seen it, but it was so much fun to film.”
“It was a fantastic show! You did well, Baekhyunnie~”
“Thank you~”
“We hear that it wasn’t too difficult for you to act as a retail employee due to prior work experience predebut.”
“Yes, I worked at a bookstore from 13 to 16, before moving to Seoul.”
“A bookstore? How ideal!”
“It was a family friend’s store, and I was mostly paid in free books and ice cream.”
“I wish that was how I was paid now!”
☆
In all honesty, it’s closer to a week or so that he spends thinking about Baekhyun. In the most random places, something will spark a memory, and Jongdae’s day will disappear in thoughts of Baekhyun. He walks into the backroom at work and remembers being pressed against the shelves, Baekhyun’s hands on his hips and his tongue in his mouth. He passes the street Baekhyun lived on on his way home and remembers making stupid blanket forts that spanned Baekhyun’s entire living room, sleepovers in Chapter One where they’d try to find the scariest book they could and read it aloud. Swimming in Baekhyun’s pool. Sleeping in his bed together, exhausted after a day full of nothing but the two of them. Baekhyun had written him a song once, and promised he’d sing it to him once he was famous. Oh my God, he’s really about to cry because of this. When I’m in your arms, heaven melts and comes inside, Baekhyun’s voice floats over the store, where the memories of him had been hitting him hardest lately. It’s been years, yearssince he has spoken to Baekhyun and it hasn’t actually hit him until now. Why would Baekhyun come back for him? Why did he think he would?
They don’t know each other anymore, they don’t talk, they don’t text. Baekhyun was in the news awhile back, having posted something directed at sasaeng fans, so the number Jongdae has in his phone probably doesn’t even lead to Baekhyun anymore- he’d gotten it right after he’d moved to Seoul and that was seven years ago. It was more likely than not that number hadn’t led to Baekhyun since debut.
Jongdae’s breath comes shorter and faster, and he leans the broom on the counter before he lets himself slide to the floor, knees to his chest. He’s been living his life with the expectation that Baekhyun not only remembered him, but also looked forward to the day they would see each other again- he’s been living his life on the post-coitus promise a teenagermade to him right before he moved away and got famous. Who does that? Who, in their right mind, sits and believes that everything will undoubtedly work out in the end? Fairy tales aren’t real, a shitty beginning doesn’t guarantee a happy ending, and famous people don’t come back to date their high school sweethearts. He’s a fucking idiot, and now he’s a fucking idiot having an anxiety attack.
He should’ve gone to college- he didn’t even want to, but he could’ve probably gotten in on some kind of scholarship, like Jongin, and he could’ve studied something important that would make money. He doesn’t have a backup plan if something were to happen to the store, he mostly just thought it would always be part of his life. Of course he’d been worried at points, and definitely thought about the store more than Baekhyun but- what if he was late on bills? What if people stopped coming in? What if he had to stop paying Chanyeol and Joonmyun? They wouldn’t stay out of the kindness of their hearts, they have bills, and you can’t pay rent with love-
The bell above the door rings, and Jongdae can hear the customers’ feet shuffle across the floor. He wipes his face- he hadn’t even noticed he’d started crying- and takes a deep breath. “Welcome to Chapter One, can I help you guys find anything in particular?” He stands up and brushes off his clothing, smiling at the couple like he hadn’t been crying on the ground only a second ago.
“Ah, no, we’re just gonna take a look around for now. Thanks.” One of the women says, both of them smiling back at him. They turn their attention to the shelves of books and Jongdae waits for them to disappear before he almost runs to the back room to change the radio station before it can cut back to Baekhyun’s interview.
Jongdae manages to get in another short cry before the couple rings the bell at the counter, and he wipes his face on his sleeve before he rings them up. They’re kind enough to not mention his red eyes.
☆
“Hello, and welcome back to Afternoon Date. Today, listeners, I am very excited. We have a very, very special guest, I myself am a huge fan! Can you guess who it is? He has recently broken records for album sales, not only in the male soloist category but overall, with a strong album containing strong ballads, hypnotic and funky dance tracks, and a dramatic title track sure to excite you. Please welcome the prince of light with a heavenly voice, Byun Baekhyun!”
“Wow, what an intro.”
Baekhyun and the host laugh.
“Please, introduce yourself.”
“Hello, Afternoon listeners! I’m Byun Baekhyun. Recently I have come back with a full studio album, Ex’act. Please listen and give it all your love~” They laugh again.
“Baekhyun, it has been ages since I’ve had the pleasure of having you in my studio.”
“Ahhh, I know. I missed you and all the listeners.”His voice is bright and sweet, perfect to hear in the morning over the radio.
“I know we missed you too!”The host shuffles her papers too close to the microphone, and the noise yanks Jongdae’s focus away from Baekhyun.“You’ve come back after your first Japan tour, after a full 8 months after your last comeback, the mini album Sing For You. What’s it like to be promoting once again?”
“Wow, well, it’s completely different from being on tour, let me tell you-”
Jongdae slams his hand down on the radio, and Chanyeol and Joonmyun stare open mouthed at him.
“His voice is irritating me.” He offers as explanation, but he gently pats the radio in apology.
“Dude, his voice is made of honey.” Chanyeol reaches for the radio and Jongdae pins his hand to the table with a sharp look. “Okay, okay. I’ll watch it on youtube later.” He goes back to tearing apart a piece of paper advertising the Two Cup Chump, this time in silence.
“What’s up with you, Jongdae?” Arms crossed, Joonmyun leans back in his swivel chair. “You’ve been really… Off. Recently.” Chanyeol nods silently beside him, still focused on bits of paper.
“I’m fine.” Jongdae says quickly. Joonmyun’s eyebrows shoot up. “I am fine, Joonmyun. I’m just tired.”
“You should take some time off.” Chanyeol offers. “I don’t mind coming in more if it means you get a break.”
Jongdae sighs. “Can’t afford to pay you for that many more hours.” Joonmyun opens his arms to Jongdae down for a hug, but Jongdae waves him off. “I really am fine.” Joonmyun makes an unattractive face.
“Could you call Jongin over to close more often? He gets off at 4, doesn’t he? Siblings are free labor.” Joonmyun tries.
“He has class from 6 to 8. Guys, it’s fine. I’m good. This won’t be forever. It’ll be like another month or two, then Jongin will be out of school for the summer, and then he can come help me.”
“Help you with what? I brought coffee and old muffins.” Arms full, Jongin enters through the back door and sets down the drink carrier and bag on the table before taking a seat next to Chanyeol. Jongdae must really be off, he hadn’t even heard the door open.
“Speak of the devil.” Joonmyun smiles at Jongin. “Help your brother to not actually die.”
“Ahhh. I’m out for summer in two weeks.” Time has flown by, it seems. “I’ll see if Luhan was planning on switching up my hours.” It’s telling that Jongin already knows Jongdae needs help in the store.
“Thanks, Jongin.” All the muffins that Jongin’s brought are blueberry, so Jongdae takes a coffee instead. The back/break room is filled with boxes of recently donated books that Jongdae hasn’t been able to sort through yet. Maybe he can delegate it to Jongin?
“Hey, I can close tonight.” Joonmyun says while locking his phone. Jongdae hadn’t even seen him take it out. “Taotao and the twins are at the studio so they won’t be home until late.” Jongdae starts to speak, but Joonmyun cuts him off. “You can pay me by sleeping for 6 to 8 hours, and then you can make me dinner once this week.”
“Fine,” Joonmyun shoots him a toothy smile at his agreement. “But I’m making some kind of pasta and you have to let me use your kitchen.”
“I am more than fine with anything that isn’t dinosaur shaped nuggets.” Joonmyun groans and rubs his stomach. “God, you would think they’d grow sick of it after a while. Children are insane.”
“Blame me, that’s what I feed them when I babysit.” Chanyeol has moved from picking apart paper to picking apart a muffin, which is thankfully a less messy process because he’s actually eating the muffin. “All they ever want to eat is nuggets and grapes, so that’s what I give them.”
Joonmyun punches Chanyeol in the shoulder, and Chanyeol does the same to him before it turns into an arm wrestling match, both of them evenly matched. Chanyeol had recently begun working out, a fact that he would bring up whenever there was a lull in the conversation. It cycled with his other normal topics: Tinder, macros, his music, or classic romance novels.
Jongin turns to Jongdae quietly. “Hey, you should go home. Get some real rest.” He smiles up at Jongdae. “If you leave your keys, I’ll come in tomorrow. I don’t have classes or work.”
“You’re really gonna give up a day off for this?” Jongdae says, but he’s already pulling his keys out of his pocket.
Jongin shrugs. “Yeah. It’s whatever, and then I can run by Two Cups early enough to catch Minseok before he leaves.” Jongin sticks his tongue out suggestively at the last part, so Jongdae throws his keys at his face. It’s the little things that count.
He can still hear them laughing when he leaves through the front door, headed home before the sun has set for the first time in months.
☆
“You’ve recently made your debut as an actor in the webdrama, Dream Girl. What was it like on set?”
“I’ll be honest, I was so nervous at first! Everyone, cast and crew, were super nice and helpful though.”
“I’m glad! How was working with Kim Taeyeon? We’ve heard you’re a fan~”
“I mean, my love interest was played by Kim Taeyeon. As a fan, that’s like… A dream come true, pun unintended. She was a total angel, and so patient with me when I messed up or forgot my lines.”
“I’ve heard excellent things about her.”
“It’s all true, probably. She’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”
“Could you give us a summary of the drama?”
“Basically, my character, a student working his way through college at a convenience store, keeps having dreams about this beautiful girl, played by Taeyeon. In a different world, she is a wealthy pianist who is all alone, dreaming about him. Then, due to a freak thunderstorm, he’s transported into her universe- a universe where everything is gray until you find your soulmate. I won’t share anything else, in case anyone listening hasn’t yet seen it, but it was so much fun to film.”
“It was a fantastic show! You did well, Baekhyunnie~”
“Thank you~”
“We hear that it wasn’t too difficult for you to act as a retail employee due to prior work experience predebut.”
“Yes, I worked at a bookstore from 13 to 16, before moving to Seoul.”
“A bookstore? How ideal!”
“It was a family friend’s store, and I was mostly paid in free books and ice cream.”
“I wish that was how I was paid now! So, tell us what you were like in high school.”
“We, being my parents and I, actually moved to Seoul during my second year of high school. While I went to my first school, I was really quiet, mostly because I practiced every single night so I was tired all the time.” The host laughs. “Once I moved, I really opened up. Because I was a trainee, my schedule was regulated- mostly- and because I went to a school with other trainees, I had more in common with my peers. I’m naturally a very gregarious person, so it was a good place for me.”
“Good vocabulary word.”
“Aha, thank you. But really, I could talk about not getting a certain choreography and they would help me, or I could complain about how a song was difficult to sing and I was met with more than ‘how can it be hard to sing, don’t you just sing it.’ I got to talk to people understood me, my interests, and what I was going through daily. I found my niche.”
“A much better environment, then.”
“I agree.”
“Do you think of anyone specific while writing songs?”Jongdae’s stomach turns as Sunny’s FM Date cuts back to the Baekhyun interview.
“Hmm, sometimes. It depends. I don’t have a lot of experience in love, and I’m far too busy now to date.”Love. Cool. That’s me, Jongdae thinks.
“So you have dated?”Jongdae wants to hear him say it, wants to hear Baekhyun mention him. Maybe he’ll say his name. Jongdae tingles with anxiety over the thought.
“Ahh, I gave that one away, didn’t I?” Say it, “yes, I have.” Jongdae has to stop and focus on listening, he’s so close to screaming. This is the closest thing to closure he’s gotten. “Predebut, I had a boyfriend.”Say Jongdae, Jongdae thinks. “Other than that, nothing.”At least he wasn’t better off, unless he was lying on air about being single for the past seven or so years, which he probably was. Jongdae might be shaking in anger. Why is he angry?
“Nothing sweeter than young love. Speaking of love, what inspired the track Artificial Love? I would hope not your first boyfriend.” Try it, Baekhyun. Jongdae thinks. Artificial love my ass-
“To be honest, the drama Odd.” They laugh.
“Oh, I understand it completely then.”What?
“Exactly!”That’s it?
“We won’t spoil the show-”
“Of course not!
“-So without further ado, here is Artificial Love.”
Jongdae turns the radio off. Three years of friendship to three years of being in loveand all he’s gotten is four sentences. Of course, Baekhyun has referenced him in conversation, on air, before, as a friend (Jongin is always sure to link him, either radio clips on youtube or gifsets of Baekhyun he finds on tumblr), but he’s never been brought up as his first love. This had to happen now, and he had to be around to hear it, because Jongdae had finally let everything come crashing down, and it was like the second something hit him, everything even distantly related that could possibly hurt his feelings would find its way to him. He wants to scream until his throat bleeds. The world is unfair.
“Chanyeol, will you plug in your phone or something? No dubstep, we’re still open.” He says, voice tight, deciding to reorganize the small bookmarks and chocolates that sat in front of the register. They were messy, in a way that probably didn’t appeal to potential customers, and the mindless work might take his mind off B-off things. Might take his mind off of things. Stuff. He pulls a few pieces of chocolate out of the small barrel of hard candy.
“I thought you liked Baekhyun.” Joonmyun says from a few very tall bookshelves over. “Don’t you have all of his CDs?” He’s hidden but voices tend to carry in the bookstore. “Besides, Artificial Love is like… Not only one of his best songs but one of the best songs ever. Not to exaggerate.”
“I own all but the most recent,” Baekhyun’s mom usually sent him a copy. Originally, Baekhyun had given them to him (signed) but somewhere between Growl and Exodus the return address had changed to be his mom’s instead of his own. Jongdae couldn’t even remember when that changed, which hurt more than Baekhyun delegating the mailing of gifts to his mom. He thinks. Everything hurts his heart lately.
“Wow, really?” Chanyeol says, bent over his phone. “Didn’t take you for an Aeri.”
“I don’t owe you any explanations.” Jongdae’s already moved on in his head, recapping this morning when he’d cried over his cereal for a reason that, thankfully, wasn’t Baekhyun. “Did you know swans can be gay?”
“Why? You wanna swan it up with Byun Baekhyun?” Chanyeol smirks.
Jongdae smiles at him. “I hate you. You’re fired.”
“You say it like you wouldn’t ‘swan it up’ with him, Chanyeol.” Joonmyun walks over and leans a step ladder on the counter beside where Jongdae is organizing candy. Wordlessly, Jongdae hands him an unwrapped piece of chocolate and Joonmyun shoves it into his mouth in one piece. Animal. Jongdae would be more verbal about his disgust, but he’s seen Joonmyun eat his kids’ half-slobbered on left overs.
“I would more than swan it up with him.” Chanyeol says. Somehow he’s gotten ahold of yet another Two Cup Chump flier. “I would gladly die between those thighs-” Jongdae coughs loudly. “Can you imagine how good he would look-”
“La la la, I can’t hear you. Why are you like this?” Jongdae might be panicking. It’s been a long week, he doesn’t need to hear exactly how Chanyeol would have Baekhyun suck him off.
(A voice in the back of his head chants been there, done that at the thought of Baekhyun on his knees and Jongdae wonders if you can sleep off a depressive funk if it’s been brought on by heartbreak.)
“Maybe you just need to get laid.” He flicks a piece of paper at Jongdae, and Jongdae makes a mental note to sweep before he heads home, or to at least make Chanyeol sweep before he heads home.
“I would argue against him but I also haven’t ever seen you go out on a date, like, ever.” Joonmyun says.
“That’s like, the weirdest thing you could ever bring up.” Jongdae says. “Why does that matter to either of you? Do I need to hire an HR rep?”
“Why are you acting like you haven’t taken me out to coffee specifically to talk about my sex life? You and Chanyeol wanted a recap of my entire honeymoon.” Joonmyun reminds him. “You told me I had to use at least three adjectives in every sentence.”
“That’s different. Also, Chanyeol said you had to use three. I only said you had to use more.”
“Remember that guy from my gym I mentioned? I think he’s still interested.” Chanyeol wiggles his phone in his hand. Bangarang by Skrillex plays softly in the background. “I’ll ask if he’s available this Friday.”
“Chanyeol-”
“No, ask for Saturday, Friday is date night for me so I can’t come in then. I can come in to close on Saturday, though.” Joonmyun talks over him. “Don’t you have plans for Friday? If we’re both out, Jongdae will have to be here.”
“I mean, yeah, but I don’t mind skipping for this. Unless you’re sure you wanna come in the extra day?”
“Are you guys really planning my date around your schedules?” Jongdae asks. They ignore him.
“Yeah, fuck it. Taotao’s taking the kids up to see her mom in Seoul this weekend so I was just gonna play video games all night. Weren’t you going to go see that girl again?”
“Aw, dude. That’s so nice. I mean, you can’t remember her name, but you remembered my date.” Chanyeol holds his hand over his heart and smiles at Joonmyun before he turns to Jongdae. “You in?”
“Do I even have a choice?” Jongdae mutters.
Joonmyun walks around the counter and rubs Jongdae’s shoulders. “We’re only doing this to you because we love you. Also because Chanyeol and I are the only people you regularly talk to-”
“I talk to Jongin!”
“That you aren’t related to, then.” Jongdae frowns, pushing his bottom lip out in an over exaggerated pout. “You only ever send links to memes in the group chat.” Anyone who wasn’t Joonmyun might’ve gone with we can tell you’ve been having a hard time lately and deserve to do something fun, let me do something for you”instead of criticizing his texting habits.
“Because I think you guys will laugh.” Jongdae whines. “Leave me alone.”
“Leave me alone, wah wah wah.” Joonmyun imitates him like he isn’t a grown man who pays taxes and owns a house. “I’m Jongdae and I reply to everything with ‘me’ or ‘mood’.”
“You spend too much time with your children.”
“So I just asked, he’s bi and free Saturday.” Chanyeol announces, and unplugs his phone, cutting the music off right before the drop.
“You didn’t even know if he liked guys?” Jongdae pushes Joonmyun away, and Joonmyun laughs at him.
“I mean, I could guess that he was a little bit gay. Bisexual, if you will.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.” Jongdae says, peering over the counter at Chanyeol’s phone. Chanyeol shrugs at him before he pulls up the guy’s FaceBook. “Oh shit, he’s hot.”
“Knew you’d like him.” Chanyeol hands him the phone and Jongdae scrolls through his profile picture photo album. “He’s a total film buff, and he likes cooking and wine. Also music, but I don’t know what genre he likes.”
Joonmyun settles next to Jongdae, so he lets him see the phone screen as he looks through the pictures. Joonmyun lets out a low whistle. “Wow. Those lips.”
Jongdae hands Joonmyun the phone and puts his head down on the counter, whining softly. “I haven’t been on a date in like six years.” Spaghetti over skype. Such is a long distance relationship, destined to never work out. He wonders again when they’d fallen out, and why they’d let it end so quietly. He almost shakes his head, he really has to start moving on. He-who-shall-not-be-named hasn’t thought about him in years, why should he get to consume all of Jongdae’s thoughts?
“You’ve been on a date?” Joonmyun says absently without bite, still focused on the guy’s profile.
“It’s like riding a bike.” Chanyeol’s hand pats the back of Jongdae’s head, meaning to be comforting, but all it does is squish his face into the wood of the counter. He rolls his head to the side so he can look up at Chanyeol, trying to glare. “But yeah, you had a boyfriend in high school, didn’t you?”
Wow, he really can’t pull the brakes on this train of sadness. “More late middle school to freshman year, but yeah. We didn’t actually go out much when we were old enough to afford real dates, and he moved away during sophomore year.” Most of the time they hung out at the bookstore or in Baekhyun’s bedroom.
“It’ll be okay.” This time, Joonmyun comforts him. “If it isn’t, you can blame us and you can go make sad art with Taotao. She’s doing this huge piece on human emotions right now.” Jongdae rolls his head to pout at him, and Joonmyun sets down the phone so he can pull Jongdae upright.
“Not to be lame, but I thought I was only ever gonna date B-” Nope! “Him. My first boyfriend, I mean. I really thought we were in love and that it would overcome anything.” Jongdae doesn’t want to start crying and really doesn’t want to try to tell them he’d dated the Nation’s Boyfriend. “I don’t know. He said he’d come back for me and I just waited for him. Then we stopped talking. I guess it finally hit that he’s got his own life now, and it doesn’t involve me.”
Joonmyun sighs and pulls Jongdae in for a hug. Jongdae lets him. He can’t help but think it’s dumb, wanting to cry over something that happened ages ago again (for those keeping score, he’d also cried in the shower, and while listening to some of Baekhyun’s saddest ballads) but he sniffles into Joonmyun’s neck before pulling away. “It’s okay. You’re exhausted and not eating well, and even besides that you haven’t had the best year.” Jongdae makes what he hopes is a small noise of agreement. “When life sucks, all you can think about is everything bad that’s ever happened to you, as if there hasn’t been any good sprinkled in. It’s okay not to be over him even if it was ages ago, first loves are never easy, especially when that’s all you have to go off of.”
“Wow,” Chanyeol says. “You almost sound wizened and reasonable. Did you practice?”
Smoothly, Joonmyun reaches over the counter to shove Chanyeol. “Shut up, this is practice. I have two daughters.”
“God, always with mentioning your picture perfect family at every opportunity.” Chanyeol shoves Joonmyun back.
Everything sucks, but Jongdae’s life had been getting progressively shittier since he’d taken over the store. Maybe this was the final push Jongdae needed for him to start getting his shit together, to pull himself up by the bootstraps and all that. “So what’s the plan for my date?”
☆
Baekhyun very rarely uses FaceBook anymore, perpetually scared that the second he opens it on his phone sasaengs will suddenly have access to the hundreds of baby photos his mom’s posted over the years or all of his predebut selfies taken while he was learning how to use eyeliner. He’s amazed no one’s tricked his mom into sharing it all yet.
(It’s just a matter of time.)
It’s so weird to think about Jongdae now. Baekhyun used to know everything about him but now he isn’t even entirely sure on what he looks like. Everything about him, aside from random facts like how Jongdae dog-earred all the pages in the books he read no matter how much his dad would yell at him, or that his mouth curled up like a cat’s when he smiled. Dozens of memories of the bookstore. Climbing trees and into windows. Then of course there were the dozens of gasps, moans, hesitant touches, or the way Jongdae felt beneath his hands that were stored away for lonely nights, but those no longer had a face. Amazing that’d he’d managed to remember everything but the most important part.
So he curls up on his couch wearing only boxers and the biggest hoodie he owns, and pulls his laptop up to his chest. His apartment is dark and the light from his computer burns his eyes, but he’ll adjust soon enough so he puts up with it instead of bothering to turn down the brightness. Logging onto FaceBook greets him with an ugly amount of notifications.
It takes thirty minutes for him to read all the messages (mostly from family members asking for things, which he deletes), go through the dozens of game invitations (mostly from Jongin, Jongdae’s younger brother, which he accepts), and look at all the random shit he’s been tagged in over the months that he hasn’t logged on (mostly memes or pictures of himself, which he ignores). He is tagged in a very cute post, some tag-20-people-you-love shit, by a girl he knew in high school, so he starts down the rabbit hole and clicks on her page. She’d had cute little twins two years ago, was married three years ago. He received an invitation, but had been gearing up for another comeback, so he’d sent her some flowers and some pillows or towels or something. He can’t even remember her husband’s name, so he finds her Wedding Day! 130804 :) photo album and starts clicking his way through dozens of artsy shots of her getting her hair done, or her husband straightening his tie. The ceremony looked beautiful, an outdoor wedding by the river. It’d probably been super hot, but at least Taotao was smiling in every picture. In the middle of the album she’d started to cry, and she captioned all of those pictures with the eye-rolling emoji and hearts. Baekhyun actually recognizes her husband, an upper classman named Joonmyun he’d never spoken to, so he looks through the groomsmen to see if any other classmates-
“Shit.” He says aloud. “Fuck.”
Jongdae looked fucking goodin a suit, and completely different than however Baekhyun thought he remembered him. He’s tagged in the photo so Baekhyun clicks his name, finally remembering why he had even opened his computer, and taps his fingers on his laptop impatiently. When the profile loads he goes immediately to his photos. Dozens of pictures, all of Jongdae smiling, or posing with random art or statues or buildings, pictures of him at the bookstore or the beach- Baekhyun has to stop at these pictures, admittedly first to oogle him, shirtless in swim shorts, but very quickly because he’s noticed a constant in Jongdae’s pictures.
Some guy who hadn’t gone to highschool with them is in most of the recent pictures. He has his arm around Jongdae in some of them, holding his hand in others. In the beach pictures, they sit side by side, and Jongdae has what Baekhyun guesses is a fading hickey on his collar bone, right below where a shirt would end.
It hurts more than what is reasonable, considering they haven’t spoken in years. Last time they’d spoken in something more than a two sentence email or dumb game invite had been just after debut, and Baekhyun had told Jongdae they would have to stop talking for a bit because his schedule was going to be even busier, and he would barely have time for sleep, let alone have time to text or video chat. Jongdae had agreed and they’d both promised that they would skype after Baekhyun stopped promoting his debut album, but that hadn’t happened. His schedule had stayed full, and Jongdae never messaged him either, and it had been all too easy to forget. Stupid stuff, that Baekhyun didn’t even remember, when he used to think that Jongdae was the single most important person in his life, that it was them against the world. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he can hear himself promising Jongdae that he would give him everything once he was famous. Normal dumb teenager promises that definitely shouldn’t hurt so bad to think about, but he’s been pretty much stuck in the same place emotionally for the past couple years, considering until recently most of his fanbase consisted of teenage girls and everything he did catered to them, including stuff like signing a contract with a dating ban that Baekhyun didn’t try too hard to get around.
Jongdae’s boyfriend has his privacy settings all the way up so Baekhyun can only read his name and see his profile picture. Do Kyungsoo is attractive, with dark hair and big eyes, and his picture is him making a stupid peace sign in a stupid black and white striped sweater, the background some stupid wooden wall.
Baekhyun is unsure of why the picture upsets him.
He opens the FaceBook messenger before he can stop himself.
Hey Jongin!He types. What have you been up to?
He shoves his laptop off his lap, onto the sofa, and he walks to his kitchen, opens his fridge, and grabs a beer. He opens it, drinks it all in front of the open fridge, and grabs another. Just like old times. By the time he’s sat back down on the couch, Jongin’s replied and he’s halfway through the second beer.
Kim Jongin
baekhyun!!!! i missed u omg
Kim Jongin
ive just been going to school omg how are u??? i havent heard from u in ages
Byun Baekhyun
hahahaha
Byun Baekhyun
I’m great~ I missed you too
Byun Baekhyun
You’re in school? What for? Are you finally gonna be a vet?
Kim Jongin
no, turns out u have to go to school for like 8 years and im too lazy for that xP
Kim Jongin
im majoring in creative writing, im going to be an author
Byun Baekhyun
Wahh, I’m so proud~
Kim Jongin
:)
Kim Jongin
when are u going to come visit -__- u havent been back in years
Byun Baekhyun
Actually, that’s why I messaged you
Byun Baekhyun
I’m coming back for a full week this spring
Part 2