EXO || November drabble 'week' (day two)
hundred dollar bills, brand new wheels (love me like)
Kris/Chanyeol (ambiguous gay pining??)
PG, 2k wc.
prompt from givemehistory: "anything you want to write in richfucks verse" aka the au where chanyeol is the only richfuck and kris is his PA.
"I'd be happy to," Kris says into the receiver, sliding the photos towards himself again. It's a set of two, glossy 8x10 graduation bust shots. The face that smiles politely up at Kris is symmetrical and commercially well-formed, offset by undyed hair in a conservative, fashionable cut. He taps them with his index finger. "He looks like his mother. Yes, I don't doubt he's top of the class. I'm sure he's very responsible."
He hums in affirmation to the response on the other line, and pages through the open folder like he hasn't already thoroughly read it twice since it was delivered to his desk that morning in a neat manila envelope. "I've seen his transcript. Yes, I'm comfortable with the subjects he's taking. As for when I can start," he swivels around and taps his keyboard, waking the monitor and double-clicking his desktop calendar, "a week from Thursday? There are a few loose ends to be tied up here." Kris waits for the confirmation before adding it to his schedule. "No, it's my pleasure. If Master Park is anything like his father, I'm sure it'll be no trouble."
He hangs up and puts the folder in a bottom drawer, and doesn't think about it again for a week.
As it turns out, Master Park is nothing like his father, and there is always trouble.
"You need to get out of there right now," Kris says. He's standing on the corner of an empty street next to an idling car, wearing a high-collared charcoal coat with a matching beanie to cover his hair. It looks stupid and he's freezing, but he can't think through the thud of adrenaline in his ears. It drowns everything else out, thumping in frantic sync with the bass of the nightclub one block down. He sticks his head through the car window and checks the police transmitter. "You have seven minutes."
"Hyung, I-"
"You need to get out of there right the fuck now," Kris hisses, and he's holding the phone so tightly his knuckles are white. "I'm going to give you four minutes, and then I'm going to drive by the front of the club. I can't stop the car." He listens long enough to catch Chanyeol's choked assent before he ducks into the car, tossing his phone on the passenger seat.
He grabs the steering wheel, his eyes locked on the digital clock. The police transmitter is a constant buzz of static interrupted by snatches of hurried conversation. One minute ticks by and Kris reaches to fiddle with the dial.
"Out of all the clubs in Gangnam," he mutters, and then the transmitter crackles to life with an urgent burst of voices and Kris nearly bites through his bottom lip. He snatches up his phone.
"Chanyeol," he says, loud and steady. "Change of plans, the cops are coming in through the front. Can you find a fire escape?" His eyes dart to the clock. He has about five minutes before the police crash the club and find the son of the Park chaebol having a gay tryst in the middle of their drug bust. "Find one. I'm coming." He's already out of the car and sprinting. "Hold on."
Miraculously, he rounds the back of the club just moments before the police cars pull up. Thank fucking god I'm in shape, Kris thinks, and looks up to see a pale-faced Chanyeol scrambling down the fire escape. Kris lunges forward just in time to catch him against his chest when Chanyeol trips over the last step, and blindly yanks him across the narrow alleyway and through the emergency exit door of the next building over just as the sirens start to wail.
"You're lucky," Kris pants, back against the wall, "that I got wind of this in time."
"Sorry," Chanyeol manages to gasp. "Sorry."
They're in a dingy maintenance hallway. There are restroom signs to the left, and the entrance directly across from them leads into the establishment. The doors are slightly ajar, like someone walked through just as Kris and Chanyeol burst in.
"Later," Kris says, and pulls him forward by the wrist.
It turns out to be a karaoke bar. Kris is wary, checking every corner they turn, but there's no one in the halls. The commotion has ended up working in their favour: when they reach the lobby, they're just in time to join the curious crowd of patrons and staff filing outside.
They linger for a while, not wanting to attract suspicion by leaving the scene too quickly. Chanyeol tugs the beanie off Kris's head, uncovering his bright hair, and doesn't let go of Kris's arm. It's not too long before Kris decides it's safe enough to slip away, and they head down a darker, less populated street.
"Someone's probably stolen the car by now," Kris says. "You can let your father know."
Chanyeol flushes. "Sorry."
"You have a board meeting in five hours," Kris continues calmly.
"I'm really sorry."
"And I'm not helping you secretly hook up with rap idols anymore."
Chanyeol squeezes his arm, hard. "I'm going to be sorry for the rest of my life."
Kris sighs. "Did you at least get a good night out of it?"
He glances at Chanyeol for the first time, raking over the bare skin of his neck and the swell of his lips. There's a blotch of purpling red under the corner of his jaw, and Kris suddenly feels like he's doing something wrong by looking.
"No," Chanyeol sniffs. "T.O.P wasn't that interested."
A few seconds pass in silence. Kris tangles their fingers together. "He has bad taste," is all he lets himself say.
The first time Kris meets Park Chanyeol, heir to a multinational conglomerate, he doesn't even recognize him. Chanyeol looks nothing like the model student in his pictures. His hair is a mop of bronzy orange curls and he waves with both hands, greeting Kris with a pearly too-wide grin. It should have been enough warning to make Kris turn back, but instead he fixes a tight smile on his face and introduces himself.
"So you're my what, secretary?" Chanyeol asks halfway through the apartment tour. Kris, distracted by his mental tabulations-he counted his fourth bathroom one hallway ago-misses a beat before responding.
"Personal aide," he corrects, and wonders what the fuck one twenty year old guy does with an entire roomful of drum sets.
"Cool," Chanyeol says. "Hey, what do you know about jet planes?"
Three months later, Kris stares into a laundry hamper with a cashmere sweater in each hand and admits he only has himself to blame. That first day had been an entire runway of flashing alarm signals, but here he still is. "Chanyeol," he yells. "Stop blind-tasting caviar and tell me what needs to be dry-cleaned."
"I still have six to go!" Chanyeol hollers back.
Kris drops the sweaters and stomps back to the entrance of the master bedroom's walk-in closet. Chanyeol is sitting blindfolded on his bed, across from another boy who is spoon-feeding him from several small containers scattered over the covers. The boy taps Chanyeol's knee, and Chanyeol obediently opens his mouth. A glob drips on the Persian throw at the foot of the bed, and Kris tries to estimate how much money was just wasted between the hand-woven imported coverlet and the $5,000-per-pound caviar. "When are you ever going to need to identify caviar blind?"
"Well, we did blind wine-tasting last night at the minister's party," Chanyeol says. "Anyone can tell the difference between 1969 and 1970 Dom but-"
"Stop," Kris says, rubbing his face. "Just tell me what to dry-clean."
"Is this your secretary, Chanyeol?" The boy asks. Kris has seen him a few times before, on campus when he goes to pick Chanyeol up after class.
"He's my PA," Chanyeol beams.
"I prefer the term baby-sitter," Kris deadpans.
"I'm Baekhyun," the boy says. "I like the lunches you pack for Chanyeol. The frog faces on the rice are especially cute."
"Why are you doing laundry anyway? I told you I can just buy new sweaters." Chanyeol wrinkles his nose, face tilted upwards like a bunny after a scent.
Kris takes one of Chanyeol's prized limited edition Matoki figurines and throws it at him. The caviar goes flying across the bed covers, and Kris figures at least that's one thing he knows needs to be dry-cleaned.
The upside of the drug fiasco is Chanyeol finally shuts up about Zico and Bang Yongguk and all the other rap idols he's had Kris borderline stalking for the past month.
The downside is Chanyeol's idea of penitence. Chanyeol is clever, good-looking, and downright filthy rich, so Kris almost expects it every time he's dragged headlong into another wild stunt. He's seen a fair share of uncontrollable chaebol heirs in his line of work, though admittedly he's never found himself so close to jail and a front-page scandal as he has with Chanyeol. It's manageable. It's the day after he dreads.
As expected, Chanyeol wakes up the next morning imbued with a newfound sense of 'responsibility', determined to cast off the frivolities of youth and become an independent man. He tells Kris to take the day off.
"We both know how this ends," Kris says. "With the apartment burning down."
"I already promised you I wouldn't go near pyrotechnics," Chanyeol says.
"You are a pyrotechnic," Kris snaps.
Chanyeol indignantly does up the first button of his suit jacket and snatches his briefcase from Kris. "What I am is competent."
"You're competent at business mixers and charity balls that cost ten grand a plate," Kris says. "You also flooded all four bathrooms the last time you gave me a day off." He makes air quotes around the last few words.
The elevator dings. They step inside and Kris waits five seconds before he sighs and presses the button for the ground floor himself.
Chanyeol doesn't notice. "You're never going to let that go. It was six whole months ago."
They reach the lobby and Kris follows Chanyeol out to the waiting company car. "Okay," he says, opening the side door. Chanyeol hops in and Kris rounds to the other side. "Last week," he continues once he's inside the vehicle, "you set instant coffee on fire. That's why we remodelled the kitchen."
"Low-quality things are more flammable." Chanyeol looks aggrieved. "How was I supposed to know?"
"Hence why you need my worldly guidance," Kris says dryly.
"Or," Chanyeol says, loudly like he's about to make a really good point, "I can just stop buying from companies that need an advertising department."
Kris is still trying to figure out if bodily violence infringes on the terms of his work contract when they pull up at the head office. A waiting doorman helps Chanyeol out, and Kris is just about to follow when all the doors lock with a dull click. The driver kindly rolls down the front passenger window enough for Chanyeol to stick his head in. "I'll see you tonight," he says apologetically.
"I can't believe you're treating me like this," Kris says.
"Don't worry." Chanyeol's smiling with his mouth closed, and with his face lit up like a cherub's in the sunlight filtering through the front windshield, Kris almost believes him. Then Chanyeol shifts into a more comfortable position and the light sinks into his hair. His head looks like it's on fire.
"No." Kris says.
Chanyeol cheerily waves him off.
("Are you sure," Kris asks Yixing over the phone an hour later, "that I like him? I thought I would have more self-preservation."
"You ask this question every two weeks," Lu Han shouts in the background. "The answer lies in the fact you're still working for him."
"Also you curl his hair every morning when he's still in bed so he can get an extra fifteen minutes of sleep," Yixing adds. "Love is the kindest explanation."
"Maybe it's the money," Kris says hopefully, staring at his updated account balance.)
A/N:
- my M.O with these is apparently write >2k, realize i have no idea where it's going, rearrange things and cut out half, and tack on an abrupt ending
- ty pillowfrost for her help and support ;;
- this AU is a collaborative effort, credit to my idol group. technically windowright is supposed to write it, this is just an ~outtake n__n
Kris/Chanyeol (ambiguous gay pining??)
PG, 2k wc.
prompt from givemehistory: "anything you want to write in richfucks verse" aka the au where chanyeol is the only richfuck and kris is his PA.
"I'd be happy to," Kris says into the receiver, sliding the photos towards himself again. It's a set of two, glossy 8x10 graduation bust shots. The face that smiles politely up at Kris is symmetrical and commercially well-formed, offset by undyed hair in a conservative, fashionable cut. He taps them with his index finger. "He looks like his mother. Yes, I don't doubt he's top of the class. I'm sure he's very responsible."
He hums in affirmation to the response on the other line, and pages through the open folder like he hasn't already thoroughly read it twice since it was delivered to his desk that morning in a neat manila envelope. "I've seen his transcript. Yes, I'm comfortable with the subjects he's taking. As for when I can start," he swivels around and taps his keyboard, waking the monitor and double-clicking his desktop calendar, "a week from Thursday? There are a few loose ends to be tied up here." Kris waits for the confirmation before adding it to his schedule. "No, it's my pleasure. If Master Park is anything like his father, I'm sure it'll be no trouble."
He hangs up and puts the folder in a bottom drawer, and doesn't think about it again for a week.
As it turns out, Master Park is nothing like his father, and there is always trouble.
"You need to get out of there right now," Kris says. He's standing on the corner of an empty street next to an idling car, wearing a high-collared charcoal coat with a matching beanie to cover his hair. It looks stupid and he's freezing, but he can't think through the thud of adrenaline in his ears. It drowns everything else out, thumping in frantic sync with the bass of the nightclub one block down. He sticks his head through the car window and checks the police transmitter. "You have seven minutes."
"Hyung, I-"
"You need to get out of there right the fuck now," Kris hisses, and he's holding the phone so tightly his knuckles are white. "I'm going to give you four minutes, and then I'm going to drive by the front of the club. I can't stop the car." He listens long enough to catch Chanyeol's choked assent before he ducks into the car, tossing his phone on the passenger seat.
He grabs the steering wheel, his eyes locked on the digital clock. The police transmitter is a constant buzz of static interrupted by snatches of hurried conversation. One minute ticks by and Kris reaches to fiddle with the dial.
"Out of all the clubs in Gangnam," he mutters, and then the transmitter crackles to life with an urgent burst of voices and Kris nearly bites through his bottom lip. He snatches up his phone.
"Chanyeol," he says, loud and steady. "Change of plans, the cops are coming in through the front. Can you find a fire escape?" His eyes dart to the clock. He has about five minutes before the police crash the club and find the son of the Park chaebol having a gay tryst in the middle of their drug bust. "Find one. I'm coming." He's already out of the car and sprinting. "Hold on."
Miraculously, he rounds the back of the club just moments before the police cars pull up. Thank fucking god I'm in shape, Kris thinks, and looks up to see a pale-faced Chanyeol scrambling down the fire escape. Kris lunges forward just in time to catch him against his chest when Chanyeol trips over the last step, and blindly yanks him across the narrow alleyway and through the emergency exit door of the next building over just as the sirens start to wail.
"You're lucky," Kris pants, back against the wall, "that I got wind of this in time."
"Sorry," Chanyeol manages to gasp. "Sorry."
They're in a dingy maintenance hallway. There are restroom signs to the left, and the entrance directly across from them leads into the establishment. The doors are slightly ajar, like someone walked through just as Kris and Chanyeol burst in.
"Later," Kris says, and pulls him forward by the wrist.
It turns out to be a karaoke bar. Kris is wary, checking every corner they turn, but there's no one in the halls. The commotion has ended up working in their favour: when they reach the lobby, they're just in time to join the curious crowd of patrons and staff filing outside.
They linger for a while, not wanting to attract suspicion by leaving the scene too quickly. Chanyeol tugs the beanie off Kris's head, uncovering his bright hair, and doesn't let go of Kris's arm. It's not too long before Kris decides it's safe enough to slip away, and they head down a darker, less populated street.
"Someone's probably stolen the car by now," Kris says. "You can let your father know."
Chanyeol flushes. "Sorry."
"You have a board meeting in five hours," Kris continues calmly.
"I'm really sorry."
"And I'm not helping you secretly hook up with rap idols anymore."
Chanyeol squeezes his arm, hard. "I'm going to be sorry for the rest of my life."
Kris sighs. "Did you at least get a good night out of it?"
He glances at Chanyeol for the first time, raking over the bare skin of his neck and the swell of his lips. There's a blotch of purpling red under the corner of his jaw, and Kris suddenly feels like he's doing something wrong by looking.
"No," Chanyeol sniffs. "T.O.P wasn't that interested."
A few seconds pass in silence. Kris tangles their fingers together. "He has bad taste," is all he lets himself say.
The first time Kris meets Park Chanyeol, heir to a multinational conglomerate, he doesn't even recognize him. Chanyeol looks nothing like the model student in his pictures. His hair is a mop of bronzy orange curls and he waves with both hands, greeting Kris with a pearly too-wide grin. It should have been enough warning to make Kris turn back, but instead he fixes a tight smile on his face and introduces himself.
"So you're my what, secretary?" Chanyeol asks halfway through the apartment tour. Kris, distracted by his mental tabulations-he counted his fourth bathroom one hallway ago-misses a beat before responding.
"Personal aide," he corrects, and wonders what the fuck one twenty year old guy does with an entire roomful of drum sets.
"Cool," Chanyeol says. "Hey, what do you know about jet planes?"
Three months later, Kris stares into a laundry hamper with a cashmere sweater in each hand and admits he only has himself to blame. That first day had been an entire runway of flashing alarm signals, but here he still is. "Chanyeol," he yells. "Stop blind-tasting caviar and tell me what needs to be dry-cleaned."
"I still have six to go!" Chanyeol hollers back.
Kris drops the sweaters and stomps back to the entrance of the master bedroom's walk-in closet. Chanyeol is sitting blindfolded on his bed, across from another boy who is spoon-feeding him from several small containers scattered over the covers. The boy taps Chanyeol's knee, and Chanyeol obediently opens his mouth. A glob drips on the Persian throw at the foot of the bed, and Kris tries to estimate how much money was just wasted between the hand-woven imported coverlet and the $5,000-per-pound caviar. "When are you ever going to need to identify caviar blind?"
"Well, we did blind wine-tasting last night at the minister's party," Chanyeol says. "Anyone can tell the difference between 1969 and 1970 Dom but-"
"Stop," Kris says, rubbing his face. "Just tell me what to dry-clean."
"Is this your secretary, Chanyeol?" The boy asks. Kris has seen him a few times before, on campus when he goes to pick Chanyeol up after class.
"He's my PA," Chanyeol beams.
"I prefer the term baby-sitter," Kris deadpans.
"I'm Baekhyun," the boy says. "I like the lunches you pack for Chanyeol. The frog faces on the rice are especially cute."
"Why are you doing laundry anyway? I told you I can just buy new sweaters." Chanyeol wrinkles his nose, face tilted upwards like a bunny after a scent.
Kris takes one of Chanyeol's prized limited edition Matoki figurines and throws it at him. The caviar goes flying across the bed covers, and Kris figures at least that's one thing he knows needs to be dry-cleaned.
The upside of the drug fiasco is Chanyeol finally shuts up about Zico and Bang Yongguk and all the other rap idols he's had Kris borderline stalking for the past month.
The downside is Chanyeol's idea of penitence. Chanyeol is clever, good-looking, and downright filthy rich, so Kris almost expects it every time he's dragged headlong into another wild stunt. He's seen a fair share of uncontrollable chaebol heirs in his line of work, though admittedly he's never found himself so close to jail and a front-page scandal as he has with Chanyeol. It's manageable. It's the day after he dreads.
As expected, Chanyeol wakes up the next morning imbued with a newfound sense of 'responsibility', determined to cast off the frivolities of youth and become an independent man. He tells Kris to take the day off.
"We both know how this ends," Kris says. "With the apartment burning down."
"I already promised you I wouldn't go near pyrotechnics," Chanyeol says.
"You are a pyrotechnic," Kris snaps.
Chanyeol indignantly does up the first button of his suit jacket and snatches his briefcase from Kris. "What I am is competent."
"You're competent at business mixers and charity balls that cost ten grand a plate," Kris says. "You also flooded all four bathrooms the last time you gave me a day off." He makes air quotes around the last few words.
The elevator dings. They step inside and Kris waits five seconds before he sighs and presses the button for the ground floor himself.
Chanyeol doesn't notice. "You're never going to let that go. It was six whole months ago."
They reach the lobby and Kris follows Chanyeol out to the waiting company car. "Okay," he says, opening the side door. Chanyeol hops in and Kris rounds to the other side. "Last week," he continues once he's inside the vehicle, "you set instant coffee on fire. That's why we remodelled the kitchen."
"Low-quality things are more flammable." Chanyeol looks aggrieved. "How was I supposed to know?"
"Hence why you need my worldly guidance," Kris says dryly.
"Or," Chanyeol says, loudly like he's about to make a really good point, "I can just stop buying from companies that need an advertising department."
Kris is still trying to figure out if bodily violence infringes on the terms of his work contract when they pull up at the head office. A waiting doorman helps Chanyeol out, and Kris is just about to follow when all the doors lock with a dull click. The driver kindly rolls down the front passenger window enough for Chanyeol to stick his head in. "I'll see you tonight," he says apologetically.
"I can't believe you're treating me like this," Kris says.
"Don't worry." Chanyeol's smiling with his mouth closed, and with his face lit up like a cherub's in the sunlight filtering through the front windshield, Kris almost believes him. Then Chanyeol shifts into a more comfortable position and the light sinks into his hair. His head looks like it's on fire.
"No." Kris says.
Chanyeol cheerily waves him off.
("Are you sure," Kris asks Yixing over the phone an hour later, "that I like him? I thought I would have more self-preservation."
"You ask this question every two weeks," Lu Han shouts in the background. "The answer lies in the fact you're still working for him."
"Also you curl his hair every morning when he's still in bed so he can get an extra fifteen minutes of sleep," Yixing adds. "Love is the kindest explanation."
"Maybe it's the money," Kris says hopefully, staring at his updated account balance.)
A/N:
- my M.O with these is apparently write >2k, realize i have no idea where it's going, rearrange things and cut out half, and tack on an abrupt ending
- ty pillowfrost for her help and support ;;
- this AU is a collaborative effort, credit to my idol group. technically windowright is supposed to write it, this is just an ~outtake n__n