fic dump pt. i [exo]
a/n: cleaning out my thumb drive :(
there are all the fics that i just lost the muse for
baby maybe [krisyeol]
a/n: was supposed to be the sequel to that other broken!baekyeol thing
It’s been two months and nothing is getting better so Chanyeol gets drunk.
Kyungsoo tells him that these things take time to get over, tells him that it’s going to take several months, tells him that it might even be an entire year before the pain is flushed out of his system completely but Chanyeol can’t endure it for even another moment. He knows Kyungsoo feels guilty because he was the one who egged Chanyeol to meet Baekhyun in the first place, but Kyungsoo wasn’t the one who shattered a potential forever. Kyungsoo might’ve been the beginning, but Chanyeol was the one who’d ended it.
Junmyeon tells Chanyeol not to do anything rash.
Chanyeol gets drunk.
He goes to the bar where he first met Baekhyun and sets off on his first round with every intention of getting trashed enough that he won’t be able to see straight and that’s fine because he walked here so at least he won’t be endangering anyone by heading home. He doesn’t even want to go home-he hasn’t been able to sleep properly in two months because the entire apartment still has traces of Baekhyun. How is Chanyeol expected to move on with his life if he’s still sleeping in the same bed he shared with Baekhyun?
So he drinks.
He drinks.
He drinks.
He drinks
he drinks.
he drinks
and he drinks
The bartender puts a cap on Chanyeol’s seventeenth round.
“Go home, kid,” he shakes his head and the bar begins to close up.
Chanyeol slumps over the table, eyes half-closed, insides threatening to turn to his outsides, stomach lurching and head spinning. He doesn’t think he can make it home like this after all because it’s at least half an hour to walk back to his apartment and even if he does somehow make it home alive, he doesn’t want to be there. He doesn’t want to spend even one more night alone with memories that fill the place and refuse to be washed out. Baekhyun took all of his things with him, but the fact is that there were too many things they’d bought and made together for that to be enough.
That entire apartment was them. It was everything they had and were to each other.
He needs to move.
But tonight-
Chanyeol turns to his left.
The man sitting, drinking, beside him is attractive attractive attractive and even after seventeen rounds Chanyeol knows this is a horrible idea but he doesn’t have any better ones and even if he does hear Kyungsoo and Junmyeon screaming at him in his head, he doesn’t care at this point. It’s been two months and nothing is getting better, so he thinks he’s entitled to a little reckless behavior and a night of forgetting.
“Can you take me home?” Chanyeol hears himself slur, and he slips off the bar stool, shaky on his legs.
At full, standing height, the man is as tall as Chanyeol-unexpected but welcome and even after seventeen rounds, unsteady vision and all, Chanyeol knows this man is good-looking. He can barely make out the man’s face, but he’s attractive. Chanyeol knows that. He doesn’t know how-but he knows it.
“My home?” A hint of an accent, a stiffness, that Chanyeol still picks up even after seventeen rounds.
“Your home,” Chanyeol says. “Please.”
He’s hoping to play the appeal of a drunken, desperate, potential one-night stand.
The man takes Chanyeol by the elbow and hauls him out of the bar.
They take a cab to an apartment complex somewhere, and the man leads Chanyeol up to a floor somewhere and opens the door to somewhere and then they’re kissing and tugging at shirts and zippers and fall onto a bed somewhere and Chanyeol still has no clue what this man even really looks like he doesn’t know really where he is or what he’s doing he just knows that for the first time in two months he can actually feel something and it’s not pain.
There’s sex and whether it’s really nice sex or horrible sex Chanyeol can’t even tell.
He falls asleep on a couch somewhere with the man still on top of him-both of them still slick with sweat, chests heaving.
In the morning, Chanyeol’s head has its own opinion on the night’s activities.
“Christ,” he mutters and clamps both hands on either side of his skull. He knows that if he even tries to sit up, everything inside of him is going to end up in mushy chunks all over the floor of wherever he is.
He notices he’s naked.
“Double Christ,” and he turns to muffle his face into the throw pillow of whoever’s sofa he’s lying across.
He doesn’t know who’s house he’s in.
“Triple Chr-”
“I have water and Advil, so will you stop damning your soul?”
(accented Korean and a deep voice that’s unfamiliar and familiar all at once)
Chanyeol looks up.
Oh-good job, Park Chanyeol
Small pink lips and a narrow face and messy hair and dark dark dark eyes that Chanyeol knows can get him hard in fifty seconds tops and at least a good few centimeters taller than Chanyeol and legs in sweatpants that went on for miles and skin that literally kind of glowed in the morning sunlight and good job, Park Chanyeol.
“I’m an angel,” Chanyeol says.
The man sets the Advil and glass of water on the coffee table. “I’m sure,” and it’s laden with sarcasm even as the corners of his mouth quirk.
Chanyeol winces heavily as he sits up. He doesn’t take his eyes from the man, watching him as he perches lightly on the arm of the leather loveseat across the couch Chanyeol is spread out on. “I just gave you fantastic sex,” he says, taking the Advil in one hand and the water in his other, “for free.”
“I just let you crash your drunken ass on my couch,” the man snorts, “for free.”
Chanyeol grins through the hammering in his head. “So you admit it was fantastic?”
The man merely looks at him. “Passable.”
“You’re lying,” Chanyeol says easily, popping the bottle open and shaking out two pills. “I’m spectacular.” He tosses the pills into his mouth and downs them with a gulp of water, fixing his gaze on the endless, dark eyes in front of him. “What’s your name?”
The man slides from the armrest into the seat, a single movement of slender muscle and Chanyeol watches as the wiry folds of the man’s taut stomach flex beneath bare skin. “What’s yours?” he shoots back with a tilt of his head.
“I asked you first.”
There’s a long moment where the man simply meets Chanyeol’s gaze head-to-head and Chanyeol meets it right back and neither of them look away. Chanyeol certainly doesn’t think of breaking the look first because he’s not sure he can. He’s not sure that a person would be human if they could look away from those eyes first.
“Look,” the man finally says, amusement in his voice. “I took your drunk ass home, I had sex with your drunk ass-which, by the way, was so drunk that you missed my dick a couple of times but you probably don’t remember, so I’m glad your memory is blocking out that particular humiliation out for you-then, I let your drunk ass sleep on my couch for the night, I gave your hungover ass medicine and water, and if I let your sweaty ass take a shower then I might just be Jesus so I’m not going to do that.”
Chanyeol blinks and wonders if that was supposed to faze him. “So your name-”
“You’re hot,” the man says with a playful smile, “the sex was good. Now get dressed and get out.”
“Don’t you want to take me out to a candlelight dinner-” Chanyeol starts teasingly as the man shuts his door in Chanyeol’s face with a laugh.
In spite of everything, Chanyeol stands there in front of the closed door for just another minute, a grin on his face (and no pain in his heart) for the first time in two months.
Chanyeol moves out a week later.
Yixing has just recently gone through a slew of apartment ads because he’s helping a friend come in from Beijing for university here in Seoul, so he sends Chanyeol the address for a complex nearest to Chanyeol’s workplace and sets him off on his way. The rent is fair, the quality considerably high, and it’s still close enough to the old apartment that Kyungsoo won’t be rolling all over Chanyeol’s doorstep bemoaning about how far the new drive is.
“You’re a lifesaver, hyung,” Chanyeol says, leaning over Yixing’s shoulder and squinting at the specifications of the new apartment he’s just rented out.
“I know,” Yixing turns around and gives him dimples that leave Chanyeol no choice but to sweep the other man in a hug that squeezes every molecule of air from his lungs.
Yixing laughs, and then hands Chanyeol another address for a good mover truck company.
He leaves all the furniture, even the bed (especially the bed) in the old apartment, and uses the recent raise he’s gotten to buy new furniture. The move is quick and eventless, save for maybe one of the movers mistakenly slamming a lamp into Chanyeol’s stomach, and once everything is in its new rightful place, Chanyeol collapses onto the new mattress of his new bed in his new bedroom in his new apartment and realizes there’s something fairly off about all of this.
There’s not a trace of Baekhyun anywhere, but Chanyeol still thinks about him as often as he had while he’d still been living in the old apartment. Granted, he knows that it’s only been a few days since he finally got out and away, but it’s also been about two and a half months and Baekhyun might as well still be here (they might as well still be fighting and miserable and trapped but together). The only difference now is that Chanyeol is alone in his pain and confusion.
He knows they were tearing each other apart. He knows that they were destroying each other day by day. Breaking up should have solved that. If they were no longer perfect together, if the pain and the problems were caused by being together, then finally being apart should have made things better.
Not worse.
“You could call him,” Kyungsoo says one day when he and Chanyeol are out for lunch.
Chanyeol looks up from picking the spring onions out of his bowl. “No,” he says quietly. “I can’t.”
He doesn’t get drunk anymore because it really is counterproductive in that when he doesn’t manage to find someone to sleep with once inebriated, the alcohol just sets off another slew of painful memories. Chanyeol is also afraid of Kyungsoo’s suggestion getting to him because the last thing he needs to do is drunk-dial Baekhyun. From what he’s been hearing through Minseok, Baekhyun is moving on just fine and Chanyeol doesn’t want to interfere.
The only alternative, he’s found, is to throw himself into work-stay longer at the office, leave earlier in the morning, order food in rather than going out for lunch, remain at work past dinnertime. It’s the only way he can keep his head clear when he isn’t occupied otherwise by Kyungsoo or Junmyeon or any of the others inviting him out. And even that lately isn’t a welcome distraction because of the constant reminder that all of them are purposefully keeping him and Baekhyun separate whenever they invite either one out-whenever Baekhyun’s name is about to fall into conversation, everything stops with an abruptness that instantly shifts into nervous tension.
He doesn’t like the looks of pity in their eyes whenever they see him.
Nowadays, Chanyeol gets back home by one in the morning, but for some reason tonight was worse than usual and he stalls leaving the office until two. He stalls even further by wandering around at a convenience store and taking a late night meal at a 24/7 restaurant. He finally gets home at three. His steps are heavy as he drags himself out of the elevator, but he’s glad that he’s tired himself enough to fall into a dreamless sleep that won’t-
“You live here?” Chanyeol all but shouts.
The man stares back.
“You live here,” Chanyeol repeats, decibel level slightly lower because of the late hour and he’s sure that there’s a couple with newborn twins down the hall.
“How,” the man says (familiar accent, deep voice and all), and finishes entering the passcode to his apartment, “do you not remember-”
“I was hungover,” Chanyeol blinks. “That Advil didn’t do shit, man, and okay-look-the picture in the ad looked a lot different than when I was rushing out of the building after a one-night stand while I was so hungover that my pounding head kept me from noticing the surrounding décor.”
A tiny smile tugs amusedly at one corner of the man’s lips. “Glad you’re happy to have me as your neighbor.”
Chanyeol blinks again. “I’m thrilled actually-no, really, no sarcasm. I’m thrilled. It means I get to know your name.”
The man’s eyebrows shoot up.
“C’mon,” Chanyeol whines.
The man opens his door.
“Don’t you want to know my name?” Chanyeol tries.
“G’night, neighbor,” the man grins, stepping backwards into his apartment and slamming the door in Chanyeol’s face.
The next morning is a Saturday morning and Chanyeol wakes up at promptly nine to camp out behind his front door, sitting on an exceptionally high bar stool so he can comfortably drink his coffee, read the paper, and observe through his peephole when his neighbor is going to come out. He knows that there’s a chance that the man would spend all of Saturday sleeping in and staying in his apartment, but he also knows that there’s an equal chance of the man going out sometime to have a social life because someone that attractive must have a social life.
It’s noon when Chanyeol hears a faint click outside and presses his eye into the peephole before immediately shoving back his stool, perching his cold coffee and paper on the countertop and throwing himself out the door without any shoes.
The man is so thoroughly surprised that he literally falls back against his own door before hastily locking it and staring wide-eyed at Chanyeol, gaze moving up and down before finally resting on Chanyeol’s feet. “You could at least put on socks,” he says, “before ambushing me.”
“Why won’t you tell me your name?” Chanyeol asks.
“Tell me yours first,” the man shrugs.
Chanyeol licks his lips. “Park Chanyeol.”
The man smiles and Chanyeol gawks just a little (just a little) because it’s a smile that Chanyeol hasn’t seen before on the man’s face-a smile that reaches his eyes and lifts up his entire face and is more than just smug, sly amusement from withholding information. “Kris,” he replies and actually holds a hand out. “Kris Wu.”
Kris, as it turns out, is headed out for a jog.
Chanyeol joins him.
(once he puts on socks and shoes)
untitled [taomin]
He’s not quite sure how it happens-just that it does, and while it’s happening, he’s glad that it is. He’s glad-rather content and satisfied-with how Xiumin’s legs are wrapped around his waist, arms around Tao’s neck, lips trailing on and off from Tao’s mouth to the younger man’s neck, collarbones, chest-and everything in the heat of this moment is rather perfect (intensely perfect) and while it’s happening, there’s nothing wrong with this picture because Tao can hardly keep his words Korean, let alone have enough capacity of mind to find anything wrong with this scenario.
Afterwards, Tao flops instantly onto his bed, barely making it over the separating space where their nightstands are. He lies there, boneless and silent and still gasping for air, and waits for Xiumin to say something because Xiumin is older-and while it’s a little hard to say who started what, Tao doesn’t think he knows how to continue whatever it is they’ve just started.
(he doesn’t want to be the one to end it either)
He risks a glance to the side, just a slight turn of his head, and nearly it almost aches with how forcefully the relief courses through him when he meets Xiumin’s eyes and finds nothing but the usual lightness-finds an expression of easy-going contentment on the older man’s face. “That was-” Tao starts to blurt.
“Sex,” Xiumin finishes, and then breaks into laughter at the instant change of expression on Tao’s face. Xiumin sits up, sweeping his hair, damp from sweat, off of his forehead haphazardly. Wayward strands stick to his full, pink cheeks and Tao’s fingers twitch against the mattress suddenly with the urge to brush the hair away from Xiumin’s face.
Tao slowly sits up himself, watching as Xiumin stands up, stretching his arms over his head and walking around-naked-getting a water bottle from the several they have sitting on the desk near the doorway, ruffling a hand through his sweaty hair, picking up the clothes strewn on the floor from how they’d been ripped off of bodies just an hour ago. It’s nothing new to see, but for some reason, it’s hitting Tao right now-and rather hard, smacking him in a considerably unfriendly manner right in the face-how comfortable Xiumin seems going about business as though they haven’t just had sex because Xiumin seems to have done this many, many, many times before.
And suddenly, Tao would really rather not say-or have Xiumin find out-that this has only been Tao’s second time. Ever.
(fuck-and-oh, fuck-he really hopes that Xiumin hadn’t been able to tell that this was only Tao’s second time ever)
He swings his legs over the edge of his bed, aiming to find some pants and ask Xiumin as eloquently as his level of Korean will allow what all of this would mean tomorrow morning when they woke up at the crack of far-before-dawn for their schedule, at the same time that Xiumin turns and holds out the bottle of water towards Tao.
-at the same time that the door opens (first time-unexpected-they’d forgotten to lock it-neither of them had thought to lock it-and with another pang, Tao realizes how dangerous that’d been).
Luhan stands in the doorway, one hand resting on the doorknob, expression several parts amused and one part curious as he takes in the sight of two naked fellow members-clothes scattered on the floor (with the exception of those Xiumin had managed to already pick up) and bodies slick with perspiration, littered with splotches of color (thankfully in places that could be hidden with stage costumes).
Tao is prepared to splutter-has clumsy excuses poised at the tip of his tongue, ready to fire in quick succession so that Luhan is confused enough to leave this alone-but everything dies against his lips as he watches Luhan and Xiumin exchange meaningful glances. Playful glances, understanding glances-further amusement on Luhan’s part and a grin sparkling in Xiumin’s eyes.
“What’s up?” Xiumin finally says, and there’s laughter running like a soft undercurrent through his voice. Tao isn’t sure why, but it feels like he’s missing out on something-on a joke that’s being sent via airwaves between Xiumin and Luhan and Tao isn’t allowed to get it.
(he’s never felt like that-never felt abruptly dropped by any of his ge-and Xiumin and Luhan aren’t even doing anything-have done nothing-but suddenly Tao just-)
“Something’s up with my connection,” Luhan says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “And Yixing’s down for the count so-”
“Skyping with Sehunie?” Xiumin grins. He stands, looking around the room for clothes.
Luhan shrugs, and eyes Tao pointedly. “Doing okay?” Luhan smiles at Tao, switching into sudden Mandarin.
“Yeah,” Tao manages to smile back-reply back in Mandarin. “Having fun with Sehun?”
“Until my internet shut down, yeah,” Luhan sighs.
“I know enough now, y’know,” Xiumin says, as he tugs a shirt over his head and yanks at the drawstrings of his sweatpants, “to understand that much.”
Luhan grins. “Then you know we weren’t talking about you,” he shoots playfully, back to Korean, as Xiumin walks around the beds and crosses over to the doorway. Luhan waves to Tao before heading out first.
“Sleep,” Xiumin orders, meeting Tao’s eyes with teasing sternness. “You’d better be dead to the world when I get back,” he says, “early interview.”
Tao nods. “I know,” he says and smiles faintly. “’Night, hyung.”
Xiumin grins back and playfully salutes, before closing the door.
there are all the fics that i just lost the muse for
baby maybe [krisyeol]
a/n: was supposed to be the sequel to that other broken!baekyeol thing
It’s been two months and nothing is getting better so Chanyeol gets drunk.
Kyungsoo tells him that these things take time to get over, tells him that it’s going to take several months, tells him that it might even be an entire year before the pain is flushed out of his system completely but Chanyeol can’t endure it for even another moment. He knows Kyungsoo feels guilty because he was the one who egged Chanyeol to meet Baekhyun in the first place, but Kyungsoo wasn’t the one who shattered a potential forever. Kyungsoo might’ve been the beginning, but Chanyeol was the one who’d ended it.
Junmyeon tells Chanyeol not to do anything rash.
Chanyeol gets drunk.
He goes to the bar where he first met Baekhyun and sets off on his first round with every intention of getting trashed enough that he won’t be able to see straight and that’s fine because he walked here so at least he won’t be endangering anyone by heading home. He doesn’t even want to go home-he hasn’t been able to sleep properly in two months because the entire apartment still has traces of Baekhyun. How is Chanyeol expected to move on with his life if he’s still sleeping in the same bed he shared with Baekhyun?
So he drinks.
He drinks.
He drinks.
He drinks
he drinks.
he drinks
and he drinks
The bartender puts a cap on Chanyeol’s seventeenth round.
“Go home, kid,” he shakes his head and the bar begins to close up.
Chanyeol slumps over the table, eyes half-closed, insides threatening to turn to his outsides, stomach lurching and head spinning. He doesn’t think he can make it home like this after all because it’s at least half an hour to walk back to his apartment and even if he does somehow make it home alive, he doesn’t want to be there. He doesn’t want to spend even one more night alone with memories that fill the place and refuse to be washed out. Baekhyun took all of his things with him, but the fact is that there were too many things they’d bought and made together for that to be enough.
That entire apartment was them. It was everything they had and were to each other.
He needs to move.
But tonight-
Chanyeol turns to his left.
The man sitting, drinking, beside him is attractive attractive attractive and even after seventeen rounds Chanyeol knows this is a horrible idea but he doesn’t have any better ones and even if he does hear Kyungsoo and Junmyeon screaming at him in his head, he doesn’t care at this point. It’s been two months and nothing is getting better, so he thinks he’s entitled to a little reckless behavior and a night of forgetting.
“Can you take me home?” Chanyeol hears himself slur, and he slips off the bar stool, shaky on his legs.
At full, standing height, the man is as tall as Chanyeol-unexpected but welcome and even after seventeen rounds, unsteady vision and all, Chanyeol knows this man is good-looking. He can barely make out the man’s face, but he’s attractive. Chanyeol knows that. He doesn’t know how-but he knows it.
“My home?” A hint of an accent, a stiffness, that Chanyeol still picks up even after seventeen rounds.
“Your home,” Chanyeol says. “Please.”
He’s hoping to play the appeal of a drunken, desperate, potential one-night stand.
The man takes Chanyeol by the elbow and hauls him out of the bar.
They take a cab to an apartment complex somewhere, and the man leads Chanyeol up to a floor somewhere and opens the door to somewhere and then they’re kissing and tugging at shirts and zippers and fall onto a bed somewhere and Chanyeol still has no clue what this man even really looks like he doesn’t know really where he is or what he’s doing he just knows that for the first time in two months he can actually feel something and it’s not pain.
There’s sex and whether it’s really nice sex or horrible sex Chanyeol can’t even tell.
He falls asleep on a couch somewhere with the man still on top of him-both of them still slick with sweat, chests heaving.
In the morning, Chanyeol’s head has its own opinion on the night’s activities.
“Christ,” he mutters and clamps both hands on either side of his skull. He knows that if he even tries to sit up, everything inside of him is going to end up in mushy chunks all over the floor of wherever he is.
He notices he’s naked.
“Double Christ,” and he turns to muffle his face into the throw pillow of whoever’s sofa he’s lying across.
He doesn’t know who’s house he’s in.
“Triple Chr-”
“I have water and Advil, so will you stop damning your soul?”
(accented Korean and a deep voice that’s unfamiliar and familiar all at once)
Chanyeol looks up.
Oh-good job, Park Chanyeol
Small pink lips and a narrow face and messy hair and dark dark dark eyes that Chanyeol knows can get him hard in fifty seconds tops and at least a good few centimeters taller than Chanyeol and legs in sweatpants that went on for miles and skin that literally kind of glowed in the morning sunlight and good job, Park Chanyeol.
“I’m an angel,” Chanyeol says.
The man sets the Advil and glass of water on the coffee table. “I’m sure,” and it’s laden with sarcasm even as the corners of his mouth quirk.
Chanyeol winces heavily as he sits up. He doesn’t take his eyes from the man, watching him as he perches lightly on the arm of the leather loveseat across the couch Chanyeol is spread out on. “I just gave you fantastic sex,” he says, taking the Advil in one hand and the water in his other, “for free.”
“I just let you crash your drunken ass on my couch,” the man snorts, “for free.”
Chanyeol grins through the hammering in his head. “So you admit it was fantastic?”
The man merely looks at him. “Passable.”
“You’re lying,” Chanyeol says easily, popping the bottle open and shaking out two pills. “I’m spectacular.” He tosses the pills into his mouth and downs them with a gulp of water, fixing his gaze on the endless, dark eyes in front of him. “What’s your name?”
The man slides from the armrest into the seat, a single movement of slender muscle and Chanyeol watches as the wiry folds of the man’s taut stomach flex beneath bare skin. “What’s yours?” he shoots back with a tilt of his head.
“I asked you first.”
There’s a long moment where the man simply meets Chanyeol’s gaze head-to-head and Chanyeol meets it right back and neither of them look away. Chanyeol certainly doesn’t think of breaking the look first because he’s not sure he can. He’s not sure that a person would be human if they could look away from those eyes first.
“Look,” the man finally says, amusement in his voice. “I took your drunk ass home, I had sex with your drunk ass-which, by the way, was so drunk that you missed my dick a couple of times but you probably don’t remember, so I’m glad your memory is blocking out that particular humiliation out for you-then, I let your drunk ass sleep on my couch for the night, I gave your hungover ass medicine and water, and if I let your sweaty ass take a shower then I might just be Jesus so I’m not going to do that.”
Chanyeol blinks and wonders if that was supposed to faze him. “So your name-”
“You’re hot,” the man says with a playful smile, “the sex was good. Now get dressed and get out.”
“Don’t you want to take me out to a candlelight dinner-” Chanyeol starts teasingly as the man shuts his door in Chanyeol’s face with a laugh.
In spite of everything, Chanyeol stands there in front of the closed door for just another minute, a grin on his face (and no pain in his heart) for the first time in two months.
Chanyeol moves out a week later.
Yixing has just recently gone through a slew of apartment ads because he’s helping a friend come in from Beijing for university here in Seoul, so he sends Chanyeol the address for a complex nearest to Chanyeol’s workplace and sets him off on his way. The rent is fair, the quality considerably high, and it’s still close enough to the old apartment that Kyungsoo won’t be rolling all over Chanyeol’s doorstep bemoaning about how far the new drive is.
“You’re a lifesaver, hyung,” Chanyeol says, leaning over Yixing’s shoulder and squinting at the specifications of the new apartment he’s just rented out.
“I know,” Yixing turns around and gives him dimples that leave Chanyeol no choice but to sweep the other man in a hug that squeezes every molecule of air from his lungs.
Yixing laughs, and then hands Chanyeol another address for a good mover truck company.
He leaves all the furniture, even the bed (especially the bed) in the old apartment, and uses the recent raise he’s gotten to buy new furniture. The move is quick and eventless, save for maybe one of the movers mistakenly slamming a lamp into Chanyeol’s stomach, and once everything is in its new rightful place, Chanyeol collapses onto the new mattress of his new bed in his new bedroom in his new apartment and realizes there’s something fairly off about all of this.
There’s not a trace of Baekhyun anywhere, but Chanyeol still thinks about him as often as he had while he’d still been living in the old apartment. Granted, he knows that it’s only been a few days since he finally got out and away, but it’s also been about two and a half months and Baekhyun might as well still be here (they might as well still be fighting and miserable and trapped but together). The only difference now is that Chanyeol is alone in his pain and confusion.
He knows they were tearing each other apart. He knows that they were destroying each other day by day. Breaking up should have solved that. If they were no longer perfect together, if the pain and the problems were caused by being together, then finally being apart should have made things better.
Not worse.
“You could call him,” Kyungsoo says one day when he and Chanyeol are out for lunch.
Chanyeol looks up from picking the spring onions out of his bowl. “No,” he says quietly. “I can’t.”
He doesn’t get drunk anymore because it really is counterproductive in that when he doesn’t manage to find someone to sleep with once inebriated, the alcohol just sets off another slew of painful memories. Chanyeol is also afraid of Kyungsoo’s suggestion getting to him because the last thing he needs to do is drunk-dial Baekhyun. From what he’s been hearing through Minseok, Baekhyun is moving on just fine and Chanyeol doesn’t want to interfere.
The only alternative, he’s found, is to throw himself into work-stay longer at the office, leave earlier in the morning, order food in rather than going out for lunch, remain at work past dinnertime. It’s the only way he can keep his head clear when he isn’t occupied otherwise by Kyungsoo or Junmyeon or any of the others inviting him out. And even that lately isn’t a welcome distraction because of the constant reminder that all of them are purposefully keeping him and Baekhyun separate whenever they invite either one out-whenever Baekhyun’s name is about to fall into conversation, everything stops with an abruptness that instantly shifts into nervous tension.
He doesn’t like the looks of pity in their eyes whenever they see him.
Nowadays, Chanyeol gets back home by one in the morning, but for some reason tonight was worse than usual and he stalls leaving the office until two. He stalls even further by wandering around at a convenience store and taking a late night meal at a 24/7 restaurant. He finally gets home at three. His steps are heavy as he drags himself out of the elevator, but he’s glad that he’s tired himself enough to fall into a dreamless sleep that won’t-
“You live here?” Chanyeol all but shouts.
The man stares back.
“You live here,” Chanyeol repeats, decibel level slightly lower because of the late hour and he’s sure that there’s a couple with newborn twins down the hall.
“How,” the man says (familiar accent, deep voice and all), and finishes entering the passcode to his apartment, “do you not remember-”
“I was hungover,” Chanyeol blinks. “That Advil didn’t do shit, man, and okay-look-the picture in the ad looked a lot different than when I was rushing out of the building after a one-night stand while I was so hungover that my pounding head kept me from noticing the surrounding décor.”
A tiny smile tugs amusedly at one corner of the man’s lips. “Glad you’re happy to have me as your neighbor.”
Chanyeol blinks again. “I’m thrilled actually-no, really, no sarcasm. I’m thrilled. It means I get to know your name.”
The man’s eyebrows shoot up.
“C’mon,” Chanyeol whines.
The man opens his door.
“Don’t you want to know my name?” Chanyeol tries.
“G’night, neighbor,” the man grins, stepping backwards into his apartment and slamming the door in Chanyeol’s face.
The next morning is a Saturday morning and Chanyeol wakes up at promptly nine to camp out behind his front door, sitting on an exceptionally high bar stool so he can comfortably drink his coffee, read the paper, and observe through his peephole when his neighbor is going to come out. He knows that there’s a chance that the man would spend all of Saturday sleeping in and staying in his apartment, but he also knows that there’s an equal chance of the man going out sometime to have a social life because someone that attractive must have a social life.
It’s noon when Chanyeol hears a faint click outside and presses his eye into the peephole before immediately shoving back his stool, perching his cold coffee and paper on the countertop and throwing himself out the door without any shoes.
The man is so thoroughly surprised that he literally falls back against his own door before hastily locking it and staring wide-eyed at Chanyeol, gaze moving up and down before finally resting on Chanyeol’s feet. “You could at least put on socks,” he says, “before ambushing me.”
“Why won’t you tell me your name?” Chanyeol asks.
“Tell me yours first,” the man shrugs.
Chanyeol licks his lips. “Park Chanyeol.”
The man smiles and Chanyeol gawks just a little (just a little) because it’s a smile that Chanyeol hasn’t seen before on the man’s face-a smile that reaches his eyes and lifts up his entire face and is more than just smug, sly amusement from withholding information. “Kris,” he replies and actually holds a hand out. “Kris Wu.”
Kris, as it turns out, is headed out for a jog.
Chanyeol joins him.
(once he puts on socks and shoes)
untitled [taomin]
He’s not quite sure how it happens-just that it does, and while it’s happening, he’s glad that it is. He’s glad-rather content and satisfied-with how Xiumin’s legs are wrapped around his waist, arms around Tao’s neck, lips trailing on and off from Tao’s mouth to the younger man’s neck, collarbones, chest-and everything in the heat of this moment is rather perfect (intensely perfect) and while it’s happening, there’s nothing wrong with this picture because Tao can hardly keep his words Korean, let alone have enough capacity of mind to find anything wrong with this scenario.
Afterwards, Tao flops instantly onto his bed, barely making it over the separating space where their nightstands are. He lies there, boneless and silent and still gasping for air, and waits for Xiumin to say something because Xiumin is older-and while it’s a little hard to say who started what, Tao doesn’t think he knows how to continue whatever it is they’ve just started.
(he doesn’t want to be the one to end it either)
He risks a glance to the side, just a slight turn of his head, and nearly it almost aches with how forcefully the relief courses through him when he meets Xiumin’s eyes and finds nothing but the usual lightness-finds an expression of easy-going contentment on the older man’s face. “That was-” Tao starts to blurt.
“Sex,” Xiumin finishes, and then breaks into laughter at the instant change of expression on Tao’s face. Xiumin sits up, sweeping his hair, damp from sweat, off of his forehead haphazardly. Wayward strands stick to his full, pink cheeks and Tao’s fingers twitch against the mattress suddenly with the urge to brush the hair away from Xiumin’s face.
Tao slowly sits up himself, watching as Xiumin stands up, stretching his arms over his head and walking around-naked-getting a water bottle from the several they have sitting on the desk near the doorway, ruffling a hand through his sweaty hair, picking up the clothes strewn on the floor from how they’d been ripped off of bodies just an hour ago. It’s nothing new to see, but for some reason, it’s hitting Tao right now-and rather hard, smacking him in a considerably unfriendly manner right in the face-how comfortable Xiumin seems going about business as though they haven’t just had sex because Xiumin seems to have done this many, many, many times before.
And suddenly, Tao would really rather not say-or have Xiumin find out-that this has only been Tao’s second time. Ever.
(fuck-and-oh, fuck-he really hopes that Xiumin hadn’t been able to tell that this was only Tao’s second time ever)
He swings his legs over the edge of his bed, aiming to find some pants and ask Xiumin as eloquently as his level of Korean will allow what all of this would mean tomorrow morning when they woke up at the crack of far-before-dawn for their schedule, at the same time that Xiumin turns and holds out the bottle of water towards Tao.
-at the same time that the door opens (first time-unexpected-they’d forgotten to lock it-neither of them had thought to lock it-and with another pang, Tao realizes how dangerous that’d been).
Luhan stands in the doorway, one hand resting on the doorknob, expression several parts amused and one part curious as he takes in the sight of two naked fellow members-clothes scattered on the floor (with the exception of those Xiumin had managed to already pick up) and bodies slick with perspiration, littered with splotches of color (thankfully in places that could be hidden with stage costumes).
Tao is prepared to splutter-has clumsy excuses poised at the tip of his tongue, ready to fire in quick succession so that Luhan is confused enough to leave this alone-but everything dies against his lips as he watches Luhan and Xiumin exchange meaningful glances. Playful glances, understanding glances-further amusement on Luhan’s part and a grin sparkling in Xiumin’s eyes.
“What’s up?” Xiumin finally says, and there’s laughter running like a soft undercurrent through his voice. Tao isn’t sure why, but it feels like he’s missing out on something-on a joke that’s being sent via airwaves between Xiumin and Luhan and Tao isn’t allowed to get it.
(he’s never felt like that-never felt abruptly dropped by any of his ge-and Xiumin and Luhan aren’t even doing anything-have done nothing-but suddenly Tao just-)
“Something’s up with my connection,” Luhan says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “And Yixing’s down for the count so-”
“Skyping with Sehunie?” Xiumin grins. He stands, looking around the room for clothes.
Luhan shrugs, and eyes Tao pointedly. “Doing okay?” Luhan smiles at Tao, switching into sudden Mandarin.
“Yeah,” Tao manages to smile back-reply back in Mandarin. “Having fun with Sehun?”
“Until my internet shut down, yeah,” Luhan sighs.
“I know enough now, y’know,” Xiumin says, as he tugs a shirt over his head and yanks at the drawstrings of his sweatpants, “to understand that much.”
Luhan grins. “Then you know we weren’t talking about you,” he shoots playfully, back to Korean, as Xiumin walks around the beds and crosses over to the doorway. Luhan waves to Tao before heading out first.
“Sleep,” Xiumin orders, meeting Tao’s eyes with teasing sternness. “You’d better be dead to the world when I get back,” he says, “early interview.”
Tao nods. “I know,” he says and smiles faintly. “’Night, hyung.”
Xiumin grins back and playfully salutes, before closing the door.