[oneshot] Starstruck. (part 2)
The signing starts, and Luhan is endeared by their fans. The very first one of them has tears in her eyes, and the next one is downright sobbing. Luhan decides to give each person a unique nickname: the teary one becomes ‘starry eyes’, the crying one, ‘drama heroine’. To a really young little girl, Luhan gives ‘The Little Princess’; to a woman with wavy hair and mature fashion, ‘ultimate jiejie’; to a girl with prettily shaped lips and big round eyes, ‘kitten’; to a blond tall girl wearing a blue hairband (he saw her at the airport!), ‘volleyball star’. Just as he finishes signing ‘mermaid’s copy of Mellow, giving her such nickname after her tanned skin and long bleached hair, he is surprised to see that the next one in line is a male fan.
“Good afternoon!” Luhan greets cordially, and the boy greets back, almost inaudibly. He looks terribly nervous, and Luhan smiles; yay for male fans! His mind wanders to Xiumin gege, wishing to meet him soon, as he scribbles the boy’s nickname - ‘steamed bun’, after his pale chubby cheeks - on his first press copy of Fortune. Wow, that’s a pretty rare album… Luhan is touched, and raises his eyes to face the boy, whose pale cheeks had quickly turned rosy.
“What is your name?” Luhan asks, just like he asked all the other fans, in order to finish his signature with a ‘To ___, from Luhan of Four Seasons’. The boy gulps nervously.
“It… it’s Minseok,” he says, and quickly interrupts himself. “Ah, but-could you please sign it as ‘Xiumin’?”
Luhan nods and smiles politely, going back to the signature. Then, his heart stops.
He looks up sharply, maybe too sharply, and, for what feels like the longest time, Luhan does nothing but stare at the boy’s face. His expression is frozen. Probably. He wouldn’t know, he can’t feel his face properly, because what? What did he just say? What? Xiumin? What?
What?
But-
But it can’t be.
And yet, the boy, that young man, who cannot be any older than twenty, who had such chubby cheeks and almond-shaped eyes and a very gummy, awkward smile, is wearing it. The outfit. Luhan finally notices, he should have noticed it sooner, and he finally does. The white tee, with pink flowers hand-drawn all over it. The wristband, stripped in Four Seasons’ member colors. The blue Stormy Eyes cap, a limited item that had gone out of stock ages ago. He can’t see the backpack, but its straps are black, and two red buckles dangle from is as if taunting Luhan.
What?
What?
He-could it really be…?-the boy named Minseok is looking at him with excited, sparkling eyes, flustered cheeks, and no, Luhan can’t accept it, he can’t, he just cannot. The boy seems to be a little out of breath and, well, no sympathy for him, because so is Luhan.
“Um, sure!” Luhan finally says, snapping out of it, a wave of heat rushing to his face. He’s still a bit out of himself when he finally scribbles ‘To Xiumin, from Luhan of Four Seasons!’, and only when he-Minseok-Xiumin?-the fanboy is bowing and walking towards the next member, Yixing, is when Luhan realizes he wrote Xiumin in hanzi and he can’t remember for the love of God what characters he used.
Luhan tries to forget about it, shove the encounter in some corner of his mind for him to analyze either, and he successfully recomposes himself as the next fan - also a male, oh no, the recent memory threatens to come back - climbs onstage and shyly extends a notepad for him to sign.
“Sorry for not bringing any albums with me,” the man apologizes, and Luhan chuckles.
“Don’t worry! A lot of people prefer notepads,” he says, deciding to nickname the man ‘daepo god’ after the big camera he carries around his neck. “What is your name?”
“I’m Kim Jongdae!” The man says, clearly enough for Luhan to hear.
Luhan pauses, then laughs nervously, finishing the autograph with haste.
It can’t be…
When Minseok climbs down from the stage, the grip on his signed album clammy and tight, some girls with cameras approach him excitedly.
“Xiumin oppa, I recorded you!” one of them, considerably shorter than Minseok (who was not very tall himself), jumps around with her enormous camera in hands. “They recognized you, didn’t they? They knew who you are, didn’t they?”
“Tao did! I’m still in shock!” Minseok is startled at how hysterical his own voice sounds, but what can he do? When he asked Tao to sign his album, the Chinese celebrity had let out a gasp, then a squeal, exclaiming, “Xiumin gege! From the site!”. For Minseok, the surprise was as great as if angels had descended on his shoulders and sung along to a Tupac song. His response came out in Mandarin, all too excited, and he’s pretty sure he pronounced at least one word wrong, but Tao understood and told Kris about it.
At first, Kris stared at him with wide eyes, then the hugest smile ever, and Minseok was sure he’d never forget that face, because that was probably the most emotion he had seen in Kris face since their debut. Kris then shouted, “We read your site! But wow, you’re young!” and Minseok’s answer had been a very incoherent stream of syllables because no, nope, that was too much.
“As we thought! Xiumin oppa is famous!” Another one, who had pink permed hair (homage to Kris’ Blooming-era hair?), beams while checking her own pictures in the LCD browser of her camera. “I caught Kris’ face when he saw you, look!”
There it is, a very close-up picture of Kris flabbergasted smile. Minseok cackles at that, and then notices his own face wasn’t that much more normal.
“The picture came out excellent! How do you guys do it?” Minseok is genuinely impressed. God, he simply cannot deal with that mess of emotions inside him, it’s too much. “Ah, there, there comes Jongdae!”
The girls look up as Jongdae, clutching his notepad against his chest, climbs down from the stage with an utterly shocked expression on.
“THESE GUYS KNOW YOU!” Jongdae shouts, a bit accusatorily even, and the girls laugh soundly. “How?! Kris even said something like ‘thank you for always taking care of Xiumin!’, and I was like, what.”
“Oh my God, Kris being motherly,” another one of the girls with camera screeches excitedly. The girl with the pink perm shows Jongdae that picture of Kris smiling, and Jongdae starts laughing.
“His face! It’s like he’s the one meeting a celebrity! And Minseok’s face, oh my God,” As Minseok feels he’s being made fun of, he hits Jongdae playfully on the shoulder. “I have a good picture as well. It’s Minseok getting Luhan’s signature, and it looks exactly like a chick flick poster.”
All the girls and Minseok gather around Jongdae’s camera as he skips over some badly-take pictures until he reaches it: a flawlessly framed, startlingly clear picture of The Moment.
Minseok tries to hide from humanity in his embarrassment, because there it is, it now exists, the actual register of his ridiculous hot-red love-struck face from when he saw Luhan in flesh for the first and (probably) last time of his life. He looks twenty different kinds of infatuated, it’s unbearable.
“Xiumin oppa, you’re so CUTE!” The girls coo and Jongdae laughs at his face and Minseok shrivels to the floor.
“Look at Luhan’s face too,” the short girl from before points out, making high pitched noises. “This is like a love-at-first-sight scene!”
“Told you! Chick flick poster!” Jongdae is getting along a bit too well with those girls. Minseok is worried.
After a pretty long time, they wrap up the signing session, and pretend to say goodbye to the fans. Upon the fans’ request for an encore, they bashfully comply, singing a rendition of Alegria with their lines shuffled around, and following up their debut song, Fortune, which was received enthusiastically by the crowd. During the second-to-last chorus, Luhan let the fans sing for him, overwhelmed by the power of so many voices in unison.
“Wherever you are now, wherever you go tomorrow,” they properly sing, not as off-key as Luhan would have thought, and all of Luhan’s conflicted emotions rush up to his chest. “I know I will meet you again, because that’s what fate is.”
“Thank you!!” his voice is clearly unstable when he shouts, and the fans react with a supportive scream. They finally wrap up the event, flustered, sweating, absolutely happy.
Four Seasons don’t want to say goodbye either, but they have to, and they do. Some time is spent backstage, organizing things here and there, searching for missing objects, thanking the venue staff profusely, washing their sweaty faces. Then, the manager shoves them into their rented car, and they exit the venue through the back door, which is full of fans waiting for them.
In a bold gesture, Kris lowers his window and shouts, “THANK YOU!”
Fans are taken aback, but react positively, crying out their names and chanting ‘please come back!’.
“Next time you do that, I will pull your hair,” a worried Manager gege mutters as Kris raises the window back.
“Guys! Guys!! Guys!!” Tao is bouncing on his seat. “There were so many people there! It was amazing! We’re going to come back someday, won’t we? Gege! Won’t we?”
“Calm down, we didn’t even leave the country yet,” Yixing laughs at him. “But today was really cool! Our Korean fans are so pretty!”
“All the prettiest fans are my fans,” Kris joked, a smug smile on his face, and the other three protested.
“Lies! Did you not see that one in the green dress? The cutest!” Yixing objected.
“I have a lot of young fans and children are cuter than anyone else,” Tao sticks his tongue out.
They all glance at Luhan, who was abnormally quiet, hands on his cheeks, an empty stare. Upon noticing the silence, he turns around, not changing his expression, and mutters, “Xiumin gege”.
In a moment, all of them remember, and they let out various interjections of surprise.
“So it was him! I couldn’t believe in my eyes!” Yixing confesses, eyes wide in surprise.
“When he told me his name, I asked, ‘Xiumin gege from the site?’, and he said yes!” Tao is back to bouncing on his seat, twice as excited.
“What was that thing about him being an office worker? He looks like a teenager!” Kris sounds outraged, seeming to recall the feeling of shock. “And he’s not even chubby.”
“His face is chubby, and white,” Yixing corrects him. “Ah, his friend Jongdae was there too!”
“I thought he wasn’t even a fan!” Kris confesses. Then, noticing that Luhan is still staring blankly into space with his hands on his cheeks, he decides to poke fun at the older man. “So, Luhan? How do you feel now that you met your number one fan?”
Luhan turns around to face him, conflicted. He can think of many answers to that question, but none is appropriate. None is even coherent enough, he fears. After a long moment of silence, a sudden memory pops up in Luhan’s head, and he blurts out, “I called him a ‘steamed bun’.”
The other three (plus Manager gege) burst into a fit of laughter that lasts for way too long to be healthy.
Minseok sort of dies when he comes home and takes a good look at his autographs. Jongdae is there to prevent his death, and to give him his pictures.
“Tao wrote ‘thank you for everything’ in Chinese,” Minseok says, smiling from ear to ear.
“For me, he just drew a camera,” Jongdae says, showing his notepad. Minseok chuckles. “All of them mocked me because of my camera. Luhan called me a ‘daepo god’. Yixing or whatever his name is said he’d call me ‘chen’ and I didn’t really understand why but he also said something about my camera.”
Yixing had signed Jongdae’s name with the character of ‘display’, and Minseok is a bit confused.
“What did Luhan call you? Minjung said he called her ‘cotton candy’. After the hair, of course,” Jongdae said, and Minseok raised his eyebrows.
“Minjung…?” he repeats a bit mockingly.
“Yes, the girl with the pink hair,” Jongdae grinned. “I got her contacts, you know, Line ID and such. What, did you think I couldn’t do it?”
“You’re gay, Jongdae!” Minseok accuses.
“I’m not a hundred percent gay! I’m just about fifty percent,” Jongdae throws back, but he reconsiders right after. “Now that I went to a boyband fanmeeting, maybe sixty percent. I think I might have a crush on Kris. Which is how I got to talk to Minjung in the first place.” He shrugs. Then, Jongdae suddenly jumps up, shouting, scaring the hell out of Minseok.
“What?!” Minseok hugs his signed album protectively, eyes wide.
“THE SIGN!” Jongdae facepalms, and Minseok fails to understand. “I forgot to hold the sign over your head!! God, I missed the chance of my life!”
At the airport’s waiting room, about twenty minutes before they board on the flight back to China, all Four Seasons members are quick to access the internet and check the results of their fanmeeting.
The first site Luhan checks is, despite himself, CXQD_love. He’s happy to see it filled with pictures of them performing, glowing onstage; Jongdae is a surprisingly good action photographer. There are some messages, which, for the first time, Luhan skips. He can’t concentrate right now.
His attention is caught by a series of pictures from the signing. The first picture he sees is one in which Kris has an Extremely Surprised And Pleased expression on, and Luhan laughs soundly, amazed at the expressiveness of such face. His laughter quickly dies, however, when he sees what - who - Kris is surprised at.
Him.
Instead of the usual ‘photo by: jongdae’ disclaimer, the caption says:
photo by: winterhascome. and it has me in it once again, sorryㅠㅠ
No. No, no, no.
The next one features Tao smiling broadly, and has a similar caption. i ruined the picture againㅎㅎ. Yixing making bug eyes at him, credited to ‘taomania’. ah, that’s me againㅋㅋ.
Then, a perfectly clear picture of Luhan and him. Minseok. It seems to be from when Luhan asked his name, because Luhan’s face… it’s beyond shocked, it’s-amazed. And entranced. And enraptured. What the hell.
photo by: jongdae. in case you’re wondering who’s this short dumb guy - that’s meㅋㅋㅋ
No. No, it couldn’t be!
Under that picture, there’s a message that seems to be from Jongdae.
where my pictures at, minseok!!! ㅋㅋㅋ
The answer is:
calm down!!! would you let me breathe!! ㅋㅋㅋㅋah, btw, if jongdae took a picture with you in it today, he has posted them all in his blog, bigskyblues. go check it! if you think he forgot to post something, nag him! ㅋㅋ
Luhan opens the blog in a new tab, curious, saving it for later. He scrolls down a bit more, only to find a picture of a signed album. A first press copy of Fortune. Luhan can recognise his own writing on it.
clockwise: luhan, yixing, tao, kris.
Luhan: steamed bun~. to xiumin, from luhan of four seasons! [note: he wrote ‘xiumin’ as ‘handsome jade’!! ㅠㅠㅠㅠ]
Luhan stops reading for a moment to let it sink: he had used those characters unconsciously.
Yixing: shumin, thank you for being a fan! From Yixing. ♥
Tao: XIUMIN gege! Thank you for everything! From Kung Fu Panda, Tao [note: tao said he reads this siteㅠㅠ tao, if you read this, know that it’s me who should be thanking youㅠㅠㅠㅠ]
Kris: Youthful Xiumin! You’re not old at all. Thank you for supporting Four Seasons. Kris. [note: a secret: i’m actually older than Krisㅠㅠ i’m sorry kris, my face betrayed youㅠㅠ]
“He can’t be that older than you,” Luhan jumps at the sudden voice. It’s Kris, peeking over Luhan’s shoulder, even though he has his smartphone in hands. “I was peeking, sorry.”
“I noticed,” Luhan says, a bit more viciously that he intended. “And he’s probably not. He looks twenty-ish. He can’t be any older than twenty-five.”
“Mm,” Kris nods affirmatively, then shoots a furtive glance at Luhan’s face. “You’re weirdly quiet today. Since after the event, I mean. Usually, you’d be with Yixing checking the site together.”
That’s true. Luhan sighs, tilting his head a bit. “Yeah. I think I’m just tired. Used up all my energy on the event.”
Kris nods again, understanding, and says nothing else for a moment. “Take care,” he finally says, going back to his seat so Tao can browse the net with him.
Luhan sighs again, shaking his head, trying to pull himself together. He switches tabs, determined to check out Jongdae’s blog.
Which is probably a mistake, because the very first photo is a portrait of him: a big, clear portrait of Minseok-Xiumin-holding his signed Fortune album and smiling so broadly, so blissfully. The caption says: A Fan’s Happiness, by Kim Jongdae.
Luhan shuts the lid of his laptop with a bit of unnecessary violence. After a few seconds, however, he opens the lid again, staring at the picture on the screen with heat blooming in his cheeks.
What is wrong with him?!
The week after the event goes by with Minseok feeling awfully empty inside.
“I need a job,” he whines to Jongdae as the latter fixes the hat on his head. Minseok is modeling for Jongdae’s project about fan’s fashion, since Jongdae didn’t want it to be made only of girls and Minseok was the only fanboy he knew.
“Go hunting! All you have been doing since graduation is to mope around and live in the internet,” Jongdae accuses, getting him a pair of pink-framed square glasses. “You know what you should try? Hotels. Minjung works at a business hotel in Gangnam and she says they hire all the multilingual staff they can afford. You know enough Mandarin to pass as bilingual, so I say go for it.”
“Minjung sshi works at a business hotel?” Minseok frowns, adjusting the glasses on his face. “With the pink hair and all?”
Jongdae shrugs. “I’ll ask her to help you with it. You need money to maintain your fanboying, after all.” He finishes fixing Minseok’s outfit, and grins as he goes back to the camera. “Isn’t that so, baozi?”
“I should have never taught you that word,” Minseok groans.
Luhan reaches a conclusion: he’s experiencing a celebrity crush on Xiumin.
Such conclusion puts his heart at peace. He finally stops sulking, goes back to being his usual playful self, joining forces with Yixing to annoy Kris, pampering Tao and then bullying him right after. The only difference in his post-Korea everyday life is that now, every night before he sleeps, he checks CXQD_love and then bigskyblues with his heart giddy and agitated.
A message has been answered in bigskyblues:
your pictures of xiumin oppa are sooooo good! you guys must be good friends^^
The answer:
yes, we’ve been pals since high school... which was a long time ago btwㅋㅋ isn’t he cute tho? too bad he’s taken~
Luhan pouts at that, feeling jealousy bubbles soar in his chest, but he’s no longer startled by that feeling. He has come to accept that, since Xiumin was both cute and a fun person, it was only natural for Luhan to feel some sort of admiration for him, so he embraces the theory of a celebrity crush, no matter how ironic that sounds even to his own ears.
The blog is filled with pictures of Xiumin, as it seemed Jongdae had started some kind of project that had to do with Four Seasons fans and fashion. The pictures were really good - Luhan had come to the conclusion that Jongdae was a very talented photographer - and Luhan is always thankful for more pictures to fill his Xiumin folder in his hard disk.
With his eyes heavy from sleepiness, Luhan refreshes the sites one more time before calling it a day. He notices a new message in bigskyblues.
xiumin oppa, taken? by whom? you? ㅋㅋ
Luhan reads the answer a bit too eagerly, and becomes a victim to surprise.
of course not!! ㅋㅋㅋmin and I are just friends! he’s taken by cxqd’s luhan, obviouslyㅋㅋㅋㅋ
That night, Luhan sleeps with a grin on his lips.
Predictably, Minseok succeeds at getting a job at the hotel where Minjung works. They start working together at the front desk, Minjung wearing a black short wig that doesn’t suit her very much.
“They’d never have hired me if they knew,” she confessed to him. “Even though it’d go well with this uniform.”
They wear crisp white shirts and identical navy blue waistcoats but, while Minseok wears black pants and formal shoes, Minjung wears a navy blue pencil skirt and loafers. They spend their afternoons greeting guests, making accountancies, solving problems and talking about Four Seasons in their free time. Minjung eventually confesses that she used to idolize Minseok a bit.
“I mean, you know everything about them!” she justifies over a cup of coffee, and Minseok is a bit embarrassed. “You are The Authority on all things Four Seasons, for me and for a lot of people. Also, you’re so nice. I think everyone who follows you has or had a crush on you at some point of their lives.”
“No, don’t say that,” he hides his face in embarrassment.
“Pfff, don’t be so shy. You work hard for it,” she hit his shoulder jokingly. “Next thing you know, someone might create a fanbase for you. Some friends of mine are thinking about doing it, because they ship the hell out of you with Luhan.”
Minseok chokes on his tea, and it’s by pure luck that he doesn’t get his uniform dirty. He coughs, hurting his throat. “What.”
“Yeah, shipping is when-”
“No, I know what shipping is,” he interrupts her, coughing a little more. “It’s just-why would anyone bother…”
“You’d honestly look cute together, if that’s any consolation,” Minjung shrugs, and Minseok thinks she looks a bit pink in the face. “There’s that picture too, that one Jongdae took at the event. Both of you looked pretty smitten for each other.” Minseok laughs at the possibility of Luhan, The Luhan, being even slightly smitten for him. “Besides, you totally said you’d date him.”
“When did I say that?” After a thoughtful moment, Minseok recalls the happening. “Oh! That’s not what I said! I said I wouldn’t reject him, but that’s because anyone who rejects Luhan is out of their mind.”
“Same thing,” Minjung rolls her eyes. “Jongdae was right. You’re a homo in denial.”
“Jongdae should buy a mirror!” Minseok accuses, outraged, and Minjung chuckles maliciously.
Four Seasons is in the middle of a very important meeting with their label’s CEO. All of them look stern as the CEO goes on about their sales in the past years, and Manager gege is sweating. And yet, Luhan can’t pay attention to any of that, because all he can think of is Xiumin, Xiumin, Xiumin.
He thinks about his plump cheeks, his dainty chin, his cute little lips. He thinks about his eyes, too, how those eyes were so shiny and big when they met at that event, how they look so expressive in the fashion shots Jongdae takes of him. Luhan thinks about how pretty his eyelashes looked in some of the pictures posted to bigskyblues, and then he’s forced out of his reverie by a kick on his shin. Kris is staring at him, obviously angry, and Luhan quickly recomposes himself and does his best to pay attention.
“… in Thailand, and with the recent success of the event in Korea, I’m led to think that…”
Ah, yes, the event in Korea. Luhan can remember every detail of it. No, wait, he’s losing focus again, stop this, Luhan, you’re being ridiculous. He imagines Xiumin saying that to him, hands on his hips. Stop, Luhan, you’re being ridiculous. And then raising one of his bushy eyebrows, and smiling.
“Luhan,” Kris suddenly calls him, and Luhan jumps on his seat. “What do you think?”
Luhan blinks. His bandmates, manager and CEO are looking at him expectantly, and Luhan has no idea of what they even asked. “Oh,” he blinks again. Well, since he’s going to get mocked anyway, he decides to take a risk. “I think it’d be great! I mean, we’ve been making a lot of progress, right? That’d be a good next step. We should do it.”
To his surprise, no one laughs, no one says a thing. They nod, as if whatever he said made sense.
“I thought so. If we don’t do it now, we might miss a great opportunity.” Their CEO nods again, smiling before standing up. “It’s decided, then. I’ll hold a meeting with the producers and let you know about the result as soon as possible. Thank you for your time.”
Luhan remains clueless during the goodbyes, and it’s only when he’s sure he’s far out of the CEO’s earshot that he asks Kris, “what did we just agree on doing?”
“I knew it! You weren’t paying attention at all!” Kris hisses, upset. Luhan makes a face at him, a face he knows will get Kris to forgive him, and it works, as always. With a sigh, Kris tells Luhan the good news.
Jongdae receives an unexpected email in his business email inbox. He barely uses that account, usually only gets mail from people he free-lanced for in the past and who’d like to hire him again, for promotional pictures of food and whatnot. In the past, Jongdae pondered whether the reason why he rarely got contacted by new employees was related to the font size in his portfolio site. Perhaps it was too small? Perhaps people wanted to hire him and no one found out how? But that’s beside the point.
He receives an unexpected email from an unknown sender, titled simply “Job Offer”. He opens it in a blink of eyes, always a fan of job offers. He has some difficulty reading through the content, but, when he does, he’s slack-jawed.
“Holy shit,” he wants to phone Minseok immediately and tell him about it, but the mail’s last sentence is ‘please keep this secrecy’ so he just sits down on his bed and mutters, “holy shit,” to himself.
When the hotel’s section manager pleads Minseok to switch with a colleague for the late night shift, Minseok accepts without objections. It’s not that much of a sacrifice for him, and the manager, a tall curved man who worries too much about everything, promises to pay him extra for that small sacrifice.
“You’re really saving me, Minseok sshi,” he says, sweating, hands moving around nervously. “None of the late-night staff have passable Mandarin, and we got reservations from some big people last week. A group, six of them or something.”
“Sounds like big trouble,” Minseok starts getting a bit nervous himself.
“Enormous,” the section manager nods, using a handkerchief to wipe the sweat off his bald spot, and leaves.
When it’s the day of said switch, however, Minseok realizes he should have probably thought that through. It’s two in the morning, he’s sleepy and bored, and can’t even distract himself with some chatting because he’s not acquainted with the man he’s working with at the moment. Their communication so far has been made of ‘good evening, I’m Kim Minseok, I’ll be replacing Lee Jaewoon for tonight’ and ‘nice to meet you, I hope you and I get along’. Minseok has already had two cups of coffee and he still feels a bit out of himself when the important Chinese people finally arrive.
Yes, they are indeed many, all dressed in black and wearing glasses. Minseok is intimidated, and turns to his colleague to ask for a quick favour, but the other man is long gone. Minseok is left alone with the important Chinese people. One of them, who looks like a regular office worker but is obviously much richer, approaches Minseok, taking his sunglasses off.
“Excuse me,” he says firmly. “I room.”
Minseok blinks, and focuses his energy. He then says in Mandarin, “You may talk in Mandarin with me, if you feel more comfortable.”
“!!!” The important man is pleasantly surprised. “I didn’t know you speak Chinese! I’m so relieved! Last time I came to Korea…”
And he says some things Minseok isn’t sure he understands, but he pays attention politely, trying not to shy away.
“I’m not very good with it, but I may be able to help,” he hopes to God he’s being polite. He then pulls out the reservation file the section manager had handed him earlier, opening it up so to get started with the paperwork.
“Two rooms, correct? One two-singles, one two-doubles,” Minseok asks, and the man confirms. He usually would read aloud whose name the rooms were in, but the Chinese characters are swimming in front of his tired eyes. “Could you confirm the names for me, please?”
The man does, and they finish the formalities without incidents. Apparently happy that Minseok could communicate with him, the Important Man was telling him all sorts of stories about his trips to Korea, but Minseok can’t understand much more than the necessary because his comprehension of spoken Chinese isn’t exactly top-tier. He is, however, able to have a small conversation with the man, which seems to please him.
“Then, it’s all confirmed,” Minseok smiles after checking the papers for the man’s signature. “I’ll take you to your room.” Minseok looks for his colleague through the glass wall behind him, and is lucky enough to find him, attempting to communicate telepathically with him. Could you please watch over the front desk for me? Magically, it seems to work, and the man not only comes to the front but also helps Minseok with the luggage carts. The luggage is mostly consisted of backpacks, but backpacks filled with heavy things, so Minseok is thankful for the help.
The trip up is a bit uncomfortable, for it’s completely silent. There, standing in the front of all those people he didn’t know and could barely communicate with, Minseok feels unreasonably nervous. It takes a bit too long as well. Their room is in the thirteenth floor.
“Here’s the two-singles room,” Minseok opens the door, and only two of the men follow him; the one who had talked to him at the desk and a plump forty-something man. “Here’s the bathroom, and here is the wardrobe. You can change the temperature here, and here’s the remote control for the television…” et cetera, et cetera, Minseok recites it dutifully, hours of studying how to say those sentences in Mandarin finally paying off. He lets the men grab their backpacks from the cart, bows, and leaves the room in order to guide the remaining ones to their destiny. They are four, and even more intimidating than the other two, because all of them are wearing sunglasses, hats (of assorted types) and one of them is even wearing a face mask.
“Here’s the two-doubles room,” Minseok starts again, guiding them inside the room. His movements feel a bit sluggish to himself. He might need another cup of coffee when he’s finished. “Here’s the bathroom, and here is the wardrobe…” et cetera et cetera. “… you can call the front desk from here by dialing zero-zero-one. There’s a complete guide of how to use the phone in the drawer. The wi-fi password is taped to the window.” He might be finished. Minseok blinks quickly, trying to clean the sleepiness off his eyes. He thinks he’s finished. “Any questions you might want to ask?” Was that polite enough?
The men grumble negative responses, apparently even sleepier than Minseok. Minseok smiles, dodges a couple of them in order to access the luggage cart, then starts to unload said cart.
“Ah, the tip,” he hears one of them say.
“Oh, it’s not necessary!” Minseok is quick to reassure, wondering if he got the tones right. He gives them his best employee-of-the-month smile, hoping it’ll cover for any mistakes he made. “It is my pleasure to serve you. If you have any problems or questions, please contact me and I’ll help.”
“Thank you,” the four of them say out of sync, bowing. Minseok bows back.
“Do you happen to know any restaurants that could be open now?” One of them asks, grabbing his backpack from its spot on the floor.
Minseok thinks, pursing his lips a bit out of habit. He doesn’t know the vicinities very well, specially not at that hour, so he opts for saying, “I don’t know. But I can bring you dinner in your room.”
The man is apparently confused. He tilts his head in a movement familiar to Minseok, since he himself does that a lot. “Room service?”
Out of a better answer, Minseok nods. “It’s not usual, but, if you don’t mind our food…” Minseok wants to add something like ‘you seem like you had a long flight’ but he’s starting to trip over his own knowledge of Mandarin, and decides against it.
“We’d be glad. Thank you,” The one nearest the door surprises Minseok by saying that in Korean. Minseok is thankful, specially because he looks dead tired.
“It’s my pleasure,” Minseok answers in Korean, then leaves, promising to be back in a few minutes.
It’s definitely not usual to offer room service at that hour, but Minseok couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. Grabbing an extra-large cup of coffee, he fetches the kitchen’s door key from a supposedly secret box in the staff room and raids the hotel’s kitchen.
Minseok is a decent cook, even when his senses are tampered with by sleepiness and, later, excess of caffeine. He prepares a quick dish out of kimchi, herbs, some steak and leftover rice, hoping they won’t mind the creativity, and steals some juice from the fridge. It tastes good enough to serve, at least to Minseok, so he heads upstairs with confidence, succeeding at balancing the huge tray on his small but strong hands.
He rings the bell with his nose, hoping he doesn’t wake anyone up. It takes long enough for him to fear he did until someone finally answers, and he announces, “Room service,” in a very low voice, because the room is pitch black and he’s sure some of them are sleeping already.
“Ah, thank you,” the one who answered the door steps out to help Minseok with the tray, and light bathes the stranger. He’s lacking the sunglasses and hat this time, so his face can be fully seen at last, and Minseok stops breathing. “Thank you for going out… of your way…”
Minseok is staring. Yes, he is, and he can’t help but stare. The stranger is a carbon copy of Luhan, The Luhan, Luhan from Four Seasons. The same round big eyes, the same delicate lips, the same boyish set of eyebrows. The same face shape, even. Minseok blinks, suddenly realizing he’s staring, and mentally slaps himself on the face. He then smiles, a bit more enthusiastically than professionally required. “N-no problem! It’s my pleasure. I hope the food is enjoyable.”
The stranger nods, staring at Minseok. He probably thinks Minseok is a weirdo for staring at him and then blushing like mad, but it’s not Minseok’s fault, he can’t help his biological reactions to Luhan’s face. Lord, what if that’s really Luhan? What if those other three are the rest of the band, and they’re in Korea for some mysterious reason that Minseok doesn’t know even though he knows the members’ mothers’ birthdates?
“Um,” the stranger who might be Luhan says, and Minseok’s feverish brain is starting to find that voice similar to Luhan’s as well - oh no, he’s staring again and the stranger is staring and both are staring at each other and just not saying anything. This has never happened to Minseok before, he has never been this flustered by a guest before, he doesn’t know what to do, this is not in his guidebook! The guest licks his lips. “Th-thank you.”
“No problem, thanks,” Minseok blurts out incoherently before bowing. “If you need me, please call. Goodnight.”
He leaves the stranger frozen at the door, tray in hands, and can’t, for the love of all things sacred, stop blushing, even after he goes back to the hall.
His colleague is alarmed by his face, apparently. “What happened?”
Minseok wants to answer with ‘I think I’m living a fanfic’ but, instead, he says, “Nothing.”
Luhan stands outside with the tray in his hands for about two minutes, because he can’t believe his eyes.
“Luhan?” he hears Yixing calling from the bed, where he lies almost asleep. “Is everything alright there?”
“I-Yixing,” He suddenly rushes into the room, almost dropping the juice, voice panicked. “Yixing, Yixing. Yixing.”
“What is going on?” Kris’ leader instincts apparently kick in, and he wakes up.
“I think I just talked to Xiumin gege,” Luhan announces, terrified.
Kris squints at the tray. “Food?” He apparently doesn’t remember whether they had ordered room service or not.
Yixing frowns. “You mean in your dreams?”
“I think he’s that guy, the one who brought our bags and all,” Luhan explains exasperatedly, putting the tray down on the first flat surface he finds. “His face, did you look at his face?”
“I didn’t, I think. To be honest, I was looking at his butt,” Yixing confesses sleepily, and Luhan almost throws a piece of broccoli at him. “Wait, you think he’s Xiumin gege from the site?!” he suddenly snaps out of his drowsy trance.
“He has the same eyes and tiny lips and round cheeks and little teeth, Yixing, it has to be him,” it’s a wonder that Tao is still sleeping despite the commotion. “And he looked at me and blushed!”
“Oh, wow,” Kris is following Luhan better than Yixing, even though he’s not the one Luhan is talking to. Luhan thought he was going to say anything else, but he doesn’t.
“What do I do?” Luhan urges, in need of directions.
Yixing thinks, putting some of the food in his mouth. He hums loudly in appreciation. “I don’t know what this is, but it’s good,” he comments before wolfing down the rest.
“Just talk to him?” Kris suggests tentatively.
Luhan and Yixing glare at him.
“Maybe if you act like nothing happened…” Kris starts, but interrupts himself. “No, he seems to be a good employee, discretion and all. He won’t approach us.”
“He should just call us and ask ‘excuse me, are you guys Four Seasons?’ or something,” Yixing sighs, displeased by how complicated the situation is turning out to be. “We wouldn’t mind.”
The phone rings.
The three of them stare at it with wide eyes for five seconds. Then, as it rings for a second time, they scramble for it, Yixing almost dropping the tray for good. Kris wins the race. “Hello?”
Luhan and Yixing watch the conversation in silent suspense. “Yes,” Kris is using Chinese. Maybe it’s their CEO. Even though he’s staying next door with their manager, he might have thought it’d be too troublesome to get up. “Don’t worry about it, our Luhan will bring it down for you,” Luhan gasps a ‘who are you talking to’, Yixing whispers a ‘what are you talking about’. “Don’t worry, we don’t mind. Thank you.” He hangs up.
“What did you just get me into?” Luhan grabs Kris’ arm. The taller man has a nonchalant face on, but his eyes glint maliciously.
“It was Kim Minseok from the front desk, saying we should call him when we finish dinner so he can retrieve the tray,” Kris says. “I told him not to worry because our Luhan would bring it down for him.”
“Bravo!” Yixing claps loudly, and Tao groans a bit in his sleep. “As expected from our leader!”
“God, Yifan, you hate me,” Luhan facepalms, evoking Kris’ rarely used Chinese name. “What am I supposed to say to him? ‘Hello, you know me, I know you, let’s roll’?”
“Well, that sounded like a pick-up line,” Kris points out the obvious.
“A horrible one!” Yixing laughs with his mouth disgustingly full.
“Thanks for helping,” Luhan groans, eating a spoonful of the food in an attempt to distract himself. He hums. “This is good!”
Minseok is all nerves at the front desk. His coworker for the night is taking a nap - or hiding, Minseok doesn’t know - in the staff room, which is a good thing, because Minseok is almost literally freaking out.
Our Luhan can bring it down for you.
Minseok nervously checks his own reflection on the polished marble top of the front desk counter. His mind can’t wrap around the situation all that well, or else he’d probably be much more nervous, but, for all it’s worth, his heart is beating so fast and so strong that it’s impairing his sense of hearing.
The familiar ding of the elevator echoes in the hall. Minseok jumps, trying to look casual, but all he’s doing is to shuffle some papers around. As if to torture him, the papers slip from his hands. Cursing silently, he kneels down to retrieve them.
“Um-”
“Yes!” Minseok intends to get up, but hits his head hard on the counter. A dull pain takes over the top of his head. “Ouch…”
“Are you okay?” There are hands helping him to get up, and, when Minseok manages to stand up straight again, he sees that it’s Luhan who has his hands on his arms, eyebrows curved in worry. Minseok’s own heartbeat becomes deafening.
“Yes, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m wrong,” he realizes he’s blabbering, but it’s either that or just spluttering incoherent sounds. He spots the tray on the counter and makes a grab for it. “Thank you so much for help. Helping! The help. Thanks.”
“It’s okay to speak Korean with me,” Luhan says in Korean, chuckling. Minseok feels stupid.
“Of course. Sorry. I’m, um, nervous,” he confesses, cheeks burning, a small giggle escaping from his lips. He decides to focus his eyes on the tray.
“It’s okay. I understand that feeling pretty well.” Decision forfeited. Minseok looks up, trying to find out the meaning of that by studying Luhan’s expression. The latter is biting his lip, as if holding back laughter. “I have wanted to meet you for a while, to be honest.”
Minseok stares at him with a blank expression. “That’s my line, though,” he frowns, a chuckle of disbelief spilling from his lips.
“No, really! I, um, I read your site,” Luhan shrugs, apparently embarrassed. “Which sounds kind of terrible, because, wow, I spend my nights reading a site about myself. But, yeah, I do. I’ve been following you since our debut you know.” Luhan chuckles, and adds, “my debut and yours too.”
“You’re kidding me,” Minseok mumbles, dazed at how sheepish his biggest idol of all times looks when talking to him, Kim Minseok, most ordinary man in the country. Luhan shakes his head.
“I’m serious.” He nods, smile turning slightly mischievous. “Can I chat with you for a while? Even though you’re on duty and all.”
“Oh, sure! This is not my usual shift, actually. I’m from the afternoon shift, but my manager asked for help tonight,” Minseok blurts out, still holding the tray, vaguely noticing that his knuckles hurt. “Um, would you like to come with me to the kitchen? I need to leave this there, and it’s a nice place when it’s empty, I guess, so…”
Luhan not only accepts his weird invitation but also helps him by carrying the glasses that keep threatening to fall to the ground. To top that off, he even offers to help Minseok at washing the dishes, and they end up washing dishes side by side; the fan and the idol, the regular guy and the superstar. Minseok feels somewhat numb. It’s hard for him to believe this is really happening.
“So, you work at a hotel,” Luhan commented after a moment of awkward silence. “I didn’t expect that, actually.”
“I’m not the hotel sort of guy?” Minseok jokes, meeting Luhan’s eyes with his own for a second. Slowly, he’s growing out of the initial state of hysteria, slipping into some kind of passive, comfortable buzz.
“To be honest, no,” Luhan makes a face. “Hotel people are boring and unremarkable, mostly.”
“You think so?” Minseok chuckles, thoughts heading to Minjung. “The girl I work with in the afternoon shift has pink hair, you know.”
“A pink perm?” Luhan asks mockingly.
“A pink perm,” Minseok nods, to Luhan’s surprise. The idol looks at him with an expression that sits between impressed and disgusted. “It looks good on her! But she wears a wig when she’s here. Not to shock the guests, I think.”
“To work in a hotel, she must make herself look unremarkable,” Luhan points out, shaking his head. “Pink perms remind me of Kris.”
“Blooming era,” Minseok adds, and regrets it a second later because he really doesn’t want to make Luhan uncomfortable by acting like the hardcore fan he really is. “I have a poster of it on my wall. Good old times.”
“That must be quite a sight to wake up to,” Luhan laughs soundly, his eyes disappearing in his trademark crescent moon smile, the one Minseok has seen so many times in video. “Kris’ pink perm, Tao’s green contacts. And those bra-tuxedos. God, we overdid it that time. It must be like some kind of alien sunrise.”
Minseok laughs at that, rubbing his eyes, which had started to sting a bit from sleepiness. “It’s quite a sight indeed.”
Luhan hums, apparently amused. Then, after a pause, he asks, “Is working at a hotel your dream job or something…?”
“Not really,” Minseok shakes his head. “I’m just trying jobs out for now. I graduated from college some months ago so I had a lot of unnecessary free time.”
“Oh! What did you take in college?” Luhan seems to be genuinely interested, which flatters Minseok a good deal.
“Urban engineering,” They’re almost finished and, for the first time of his life, Minseok wishes there were some more dishes to wash.
“Ooh, how noble!” Luhan compliments, washing the last glass while Minseok cleans the sink. He dries his hands on his pants before Minseok can offer him a towel. “That’s more like you, I guess.”
“Why is it so?” Minseok frowns slightly while subtly conducting Luhan to the front hall again. He doesn’t want Luhan to say goodbye just now: it’s an once-in-a-lifetime chance, after all.
Luhan shrugs. “Dunno. You seem proactive. But why urban engineering, specifically?”
They chat for a long while, Luhan sitting on one of the lounge chairs, Minseok at the counter organizing pointless objects. They talk about urban planning, natural disasters, apocalypse movies, favorite celebrities, fashion, and their school times. Minseok talks a lot about his little sister and his friends, and Luhan talks a lot about his parents and the other members. It’s delightful. Minseok gets such a sense of familiarity from Luhan’s mannerisms and idiosyncrasies that he has no doubts that the Luhan he knows, the Luhan who stands on stages and sings on TV, is the same Luhan who hid in the girl’s restroom with his female friends during lunch time at school.
“It was the only safe place for me to talk about boybands,” Luhan justifies, pouting, when Minseok laughs at that story. At that point, it’s very late, and both of them are almost collapsing from sleepiness. “The other boys already made fun of me because of my face, you know. Even in the soccer team, they were always mocking me. So, when the bell rung, I’d swallow my lunch whole and rush to the restroom like a ninja.”
“You practically drank your lunchbox,” Minseok pointed out, finding that story very funny. Though, he had had a similar episode during his first year in college, so he could relate.
“I didn’t take lunchboxes to school, I’d eat something like sandwiches or meat buns,” Luhan pointed out, practically horizontal on the chair, facing Minseok upside-down. He smiled. “Baozi. It has always been my favorite food.” He said it so softly that Minseok turned red all over, feeling incredibly self-conscious. “Your face reminds me of it. The cheeks.”
“Ah, yes, you wrote that with your autograph that time, right?” Minseok is glad to have something to follow up with, or he’d just have gaped dumbly. “Now Jongdae always calls me baozi. It might become my official nickname soon.”
“It really should,” Luhan is trying to stiffen a yawn - Minseok can tell by the way his jaw contracts - and asks, “what time is it?”
“Half past four,” Minseok consults the clock on the wall for it. “Also known as ‘late’.”
Luhan whines, pouting. “I have a meeting in three hours and can’t even remember my room number.”
Minseok laughs, leaving the front desk in order to help his idol. “I’ll take you there, don’t worry. You should try to catch some sleep while you can.”
“Mm,” Luhan doesn’t move; he only stares at Minseok with a dazed expression. “Can’t I just sleep here,” he deadpans.
“Not very comfortable, I’m afraid,” Minseok tries not to laugh, and nudges Luhan’s shoulder. “Come on, I’ll help you up.”
He does, Luhan’s arms finding his for support. They make it to the elevator with arms linked, and, during the awkwardly long ride up, Luhan leans his head on Minseok’s shoulder, eyes closed. Minseok feels a tender feeling of giddiness bloom in his chest as Luhan’s warmth seeps through the fabric of his uniform.
“Baozi,” Luhan calls suddenly, voice low. “Tomorrow’s meeting is supposed to be top secret. So,” he put a finger on his lips, opening his eyes in order to look at Minseok.
“Don’t worry. We didn’t even meet today,” Minseok reassures him. To his surprise, Luhan isn’t happy with that answer.
“Don’t say that,” he complains. “Now that I finally got to meet you…”
Minseok survives through that night out of sheer will.
Luhan’s dreams are filled with Minseok.
During the bus ride back home, Minseok itches to tell about the meeting to Jongdae, who he’s sure would never tell a soul, but Luhan’s words come back to his mind and he decides against it.
Being unable to vent out makes Minseok extremely frustrated and restless, and, even though he’s dead when he reaches home, he’s unable to sleep. So he opens up his usual Four Seasons message boards, and his own site to check for messages. None. He uploads some new Yixing magazine scans, and new fan-taken pictures from a not-so-recent event in Taiwan. He’s almost done when a message reaches him. Anonymous.
scenario: you’re cooking dinner and your doorbell rings. you open the door, and it’s luhan. what do you do?
Fucking Jongdae.
nooo, not these againㅠㅠㅠ i’m too sensitive right nowㅠㅠ to be honest i’d probably just collapse and flop around like a fishㅠㅠㅠㅠ
He finally heads to bed, and fantasizes about having dinner with Luhan until passing out from sleep deprivation.
part 1 → part 2 → part 3