The Show Must Go On 2/2
Their next escapade is to the beach. It’s fun at first, all of them crowded into a room wearing puffy jackets and excited smiles. Then, of course, it turns into a game. Chanyeol has to guess who wrote what. Surprisingly, as soon as he reads Jongin’s aloud, he meets his eyes and points directly at him, smile wide and manic.
Jongin laughs, eyes wide. “How did you know?”
Instead of answering, Chanyeol gets up and hands him back the sheet of paper with a wink.
“You must really be my fan,” he says to himself, not missing Chanyeol’s grin.
They all pile into the van and Joonmyun, Chanyeol and Baekhyun entertain themselves the entire way up, singing and playing games. Sometimes Jongin and Sehun join, but it’s mainly the trio. Kyungsoo watches them all from the front, amused.
They have some time to walk around before they have to go outside in the cold, raging wind. What a wonderful day. Jongin sighs as he gets out of the vehicle, stuffing his hands into his pants pockets and making for the store area. He can see everyone else heading towards the food. As expected. Not so expected is the sound of footsteps behind him. He turns once he’s inside and gapes.
Chanyeol says nothing, following him beyond the doors. His face is blank and he looks almost bored.
Jongin brightens. “Massage chairs!” He cheers, running for the chairs placed right beside the walkway. He turns halfway to gauge Chanyeol’s reaction. He’s still uncharacteristically blank. Jongin’s smile dims a bit and he flops into the chair, searching for the coin slot. “Where’s the-”
“They’re free,” Chanyeol replies deadpan, fiddling with his remote.
Jongin smiles and grabs his, pushing a button and relaxing in his warm jacket. He looks at Chanyeol every now and then and the man still seems to not be enjoying himself, fiddling idly with the remote. Finally, Jongin gives up and suggests they go to the food area.
As soon as the others come into sight, Chanyeol perks up and is joking around with them animatedly. Jongin slumps into a seat, deeply confused. What on earth is going on? It’s like that for a while, Chanyeol almost entirely ignoring Jongin’s existence and Jongin sitting on the sidelines, watching.
Then they venture outside and it’s noisy, freezing, but it’s the beach so Jongin takes his shoes off. It’s the little things.
He’s distracted by his thoughts, only half-paying attention to what’s going on. Something about sand, and then rock, paper, scissors. He throws out a palm and then everyone’s shouting. He’s lost. He looks up dazedly, and Jongdae’s screaming something about the water.
No way.
He searches for a way out of this, but apparently Luhan’s been roped into this, too because he’s off to the side, slowly removing his jacket and despondently throwing it to the side. Jongin slowly follows suit, in disbelief that the managers allowed this.
Joonmyun gets guilted into going with them, disrobing in front of everyone in protest. The wind is unforgiving and Jongin looks down at his ensemble. Jeans and a t-shirt. Apparently there’s extra clothing but he’s going to be soaked to the bone anyway. He glances at his comrades. Joonmyun’s trying to act strong a few people down and Luhan… Luhan’s being hugged by Chanyeol, who practically envelops him in an effort to keep the older man warm. Jongin grits his teeth.
Right. So the whole thing’s a joke. Something to get ratings on tv. Well, he can do that too.
He runs and jumps straight into the water, thrashing around in an effort to keep his muscles from tensing at the temperature. Joonmyun’s got a brave face on, stepping into the ocean without so much as a yelp but he’s out as soon as Luhan’s heading back. Jongin takes his time. He hasn’t got anything better to do. He swims back, dipping his head under the water for the hell of it. He’s frozen, blind, and pretty much deaf when he comes out, reaching for the closest person with a towel. It turns out to be Jongdae.
“Kai!”
The brunet shivers. No. No way. He hunches over and frantically dries his hair.
“Kai, hyung is here!” Chanyeol sing songs, flapping his forgotten towel in the wind, “come here, come here!”
Jongin has to repress his scoff.
“I’m still Kai’s fan!”
Jongin curls his lip and stalks off to the changing rooms, Joonmyun and Luhan not far behind. He’s had it up to here with the teasing and confusion. He is done.
Joonmyun’s in and out in seconds. He suddenly remembered that he gave Kyungsoo his wallet to hold onto and no. Bad idea.
Jongin takes his time peeling the clothes from his skin and taking breaks to try and warm up. The heaters in the floor help, but he’s still shivering. Probably will be for a while. He’s so involved in the system he has going that he completely forgets that Luhan’s still there.
“It’s possible, you know.”
Jongin jumps. Then glares. “What are you talking about?”
“What you want,” Luhan hums, kicking the rest of his clothes aside and cuddling up in his fluffy jacket, “it’s completely possible. I didn’t think so either, but everything worked out.”
“Alright.” Jongin has no idea what he’s talking about. So he waits for the vocalist to wink, smile, and leave before finishing up. When he’s as dry as he can be, he treks outside still cold and miserable, ignoring the pitying glances and climbing into the van.
It’s significantly quieter on the way back, with Kyungsoo and Joonmyun sleeping and Sehun on the verge, Baekhyun and Chanyeol are forced to be quiet. Jongin spends the ride staring out the window, lost in his thoughts. Soon as they get back to the door, Jongin heads for his room and crawls into the bed.
-
It’s hours later when Joonmyun and Jongdae finally come in, but Jongin’s still awake. He sits up and both his roommates gasp.
“I’m going to need you guys to sleep somewhere else tonight.” He’s been thinking over this for a while.
Joonmyun scowls. “What? Why?”
Jongdae, however, nods and turns back around. “Come on, hyung, the couch isn’t that bad.”
“But-”
“Jongin needs the room,” Jongdae insists, leaning in and whispering, “he’s sick.”
Joonmyun immediately morphs into a mother hen. “Jongin! Are you alright? Do you need anything?”
“He’s fine,” Jongdae insists as Jongin sputters, “he just needs the room.”
Joonmyun nods to the both of them and takes his leave. Jongdae leans up against the doorway.
“So. Trouble in paradise?”
“Get out,” Jongin hisses.
“Fine, fine,” the elder concedes, closing the door. “I’ll tell Chanyeol to sleep in here tonight.”
Jongin sighs but says nothing, thankful that while Jongdae is a complete ass, he’s still helpful. The brunet gets up and begins pacing for lack of a better thing to do. What’s he going to say anyway?
The door opens and a walking grin enters, shutting the door behind himself. “Hey, Jongin. What’s going on?”
“I’m not a toy.” Jongin screams inwardly. He was going to ease into this, start slowly. Too late for that. “You can’t just use me to boost your ratings.”
Chanyeol frowns. It looks odd on him. “Wait. What are we talking about?”
“The teasing, the touching, the ‘I’m Kai’s Fan’ bullshit,” he fumes. He’s been building this up for quite a while. “Quit it. Find someone else. Anyone else. Kris. You like Kris a lot more, why aren’t you doing this to him?”
“Kris. What,” Chanyeol blinks, looking lost. “Slow down. You think what I’m doing is a joke?”
“Well it certainly seems like it!” Jongin replies, voice just below a shout, “why? What did you think you were doing?”
Chanyeol bites his lip, then adjusts Jongin so he’s sitting on the bed and does the same. “I guess it kind of seemed like I was joking, but that wasn’t what I was trying to do. Honest. I was just… trying to see if you were interested. Showtime seemed to be a good way to do it.”
Jongin says nothing.
Chanyeol sighs. “You know, test the waters during filming and then see what your reaction was.”
“Hold up,” Jongin murmurs, “so what you’re saying is you were trying to flirt with me?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it flirting.”
“Neither would I!”
Chanyeol pouts. “Well, okay. Maybe it was a bit over the top at times-”
“At times?!”
“At times,” Chanyeol repeats, pausing to shush the younger. “But I didn’t want to come right out there and say it. I had to find out first. So I figured everyone could write it off as fan service if it didn’t work out, and on the off chance it did, it would have been worth the embarrassment.”
Jongin’s still trying to figure out what’s going on. “But you didn’t even talk to me. After the filming, you’d just disappear.”
“I had no time,” the taller brunet defends, “and, I mean, I didn’t know what you were going to say.”
“What are you doing? Would be the first thing,” Jongin groans, falling back on the bed, “I just-why me?”
“Because you’re Kim Jongin,” Chanyeol states with a smile, “because of your laugh, your hair, your talent, just you.” He reaches forward and tentatively runs his fingers down Jongin’s arm and jumps back. “Whoa!”
“What?” Jongin frowns, half-frightened that Chanyeol’s going to say something about their chemistry being electrifying or something equally as horrible. The rapper is unpredictable at the moment. “What is it?”
“You’re freezing!” Chanyeol exclaims, poking and prodding Jongin this way and that until he’s under the covers, blankets pulled up to his chin.
The younger rolls his eyes and turns onto his side, away from Chanyeol. He feels the taller man lay down beside him, and then breath on the back of his neck. “There are actually two other beds in here, if you didn’t notice.”
“I want to sleep with you.”
Jongin sighs, suddenly exhausted. “You didn’t even talk to me,” he repeats.
The older man huffs. “Well, to be fair, neither did you.”
The shorter brunet groans into his pillow and gets comfortable. “We are a mess.”
“So it’s a ‘we’ now?” Chanyeol throws an arm around Jongin and pulls the still-shivering man against his front. Jongin can feel the wide grin.
“Shut up and go to sleep.”
-
The teasing and touching stays constant throughout the rest of Showtime filming, but it’s also constant off air. Their bandmates begin complaining but Jongin can tell that they really don’t mind. Especially Minseok, Tao and Baekhyun. They love it when Chanyeol ends up in Jongin’s room.
Jongin loves it, too. Only-
“Will you please stop the Kai’s fan thing?” He begs, sitting across from Chanyeol on the couch and crushing him in the game that’s being blasted through the cheap speakers.
“Nope.”
“Why?”
“Because I really am Kai’s fan,” Chanyeol grins.
Jongin’s suddenly struck by just how amazing Chanyeol is and how, with all the people the taller man could’ve chosen from, he picked Jongin.
“Ha, I win!”
Jongin glances at the screen. “Motherfu-”
He takes it back.
-
The brunet curls his lip at the outfit. “I feel stupid.”
Chanyeol grins at him from atop the counter in the dressing room. “You look stupid.”
Jongin shoots him a look.
“-ly adorable!” Chanyeol cheers, using his awkwardly long legs to yank Jongin towards him and ensnare him in a hug. “You are going to be great and amazing and together, we will be the next H.O.T.” He punctuates the statement by pecking Jongin on the cheek and the younger screws up his face.
“Ugh, gross,” Baekhyun complains, Kyungsoo looking mildly traumatized behind him. “We have to go on stage now. So get your game face on,” he says, turning away, “ and by that I mean don’t make out halfway through like during the rehearsal!”
Jongin ducks out of the hold and runs out of the room, passing his bandmates. Chanyeol sighs before following.
Between the screaming and the lip-syncing, Jongin sneaks looks back at Chanyeol and is delighted to find that half of the time, he’s staring right back.
They rush back to the dressing room to switch outfits and they’re some of the first to finish. Jongin kicks idly at the much longer shins. “Your footing was off and your lip-syncing was mediocre at best,” he gives a teasing smile, “who do you think you are?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Chanyeol murmurs, yanking him into his hold and causing irreparable damage to his carefully styled hair. Jongin thinks he can hear a stylist sob in the background. Chanyeol leans closer and bumps their foreheads together and it’s just them. Jongin bites his lip to hold back his smile and tries to pay attention to what Chanyeol’s about to say. “I’m just some dude that’s going to buy you a house, someday.”
Jongin laughs and then they’re whisked away to the next stage, and he has to force himself to keep his eyes off of Chanyeol.
“A big one?,” he asks, struggling into a pair of harem pants.
Chanyeol grins. “Really big. Tons of bedrooms.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”