if x, then y (but not y only if x)
kai/lu han, pg
5006 words
a relationship in progress.
written for loveismix and remixed wonderfully here by anonymous.
In the corridor, on the fourteenth floor of the Ritz-Carlton, that’s where Jongin first kisses a boy. More specifically, that’s where he first kisses Lu Han. It’s nothing special or exceptional, almost too quick to be registered, something akin to a goodnight kiss, but it’s a kiss nonetheless, and that sets off the alarm bells in his head. Lu Han’s mouth is soft and he smells like the soap in the hotel bathroom. What?
What happens:
There’s an ice-dispensing machine right smack in the middle of the corridor, probably for the convenience of all guests who would rather not wait ridiculous amounts of time for the service staff to deliver buckets of ice from the kitchen. It catches Jongin’s attention when they’re going to their rooms. The thing is tall, shiny and menacing, and almost hums with an air of challenge, as if it were declaring, “Come over here, I dare you to use me.” He barely takes his eyes off it while Kyungsoo and Baekhyun struggle to get the door open by way of key card. So at three a.m., when everyone else is just settling into bed, Jongin is still wide awake, either because of the time difference or the adrenaline that’s still in his system, and he decides to give it a go. What he doesn’t expect when he goes out is that Lu Han is already parading the corridor, iPod in hand. If he didn’t wave at Jongin at sight, Jongin might have thought that he was sleepwalking.
“What are you doing?” he asks Jongin.
“I wanted to check out the ice-dispensing machine,” Jongin replies, pointing at it.
“That’s a really weird thing to do at this hour,” Lu Han tells him, sidling up next to him where he’s already inspecting the machine, but doesn’t offer any explanation as to why he’s loitering around the corridor too. Maybe he couldn’t sleep either.
The dispenser is sitting up against the wall, looking very expensive and very complicated and as if it would crash if you pressed the wrong button. Jongin scans the buttons one by one, then settles for jamming a finger into a particularly conspicuous-looking one, since he doesn’t really understand what the English labels say. A stream of ice cubes comes trundling down, embarrassingly loud in the empty, quiet corridor.
“Wow,” Jongin says, “haha.”
“That looks fun,” Lu Han says, looking down the machine cautiously.
At eye level, Lu Han’s hair is still a bit damp, presumably from showering. Normally all Jongin gets when they’re standing in their usual formation is an eyeful of Lu Han’s frizzy, bottle-blonde hair, and Jongin suspects that other than the endless amounts of tampering that it’s been subject to, it’s really the bleaching that’s doing it. His own hair isn’t this terrible, after a couple of dye jobs. Nonetheless, Lu Han’s hair now doesn’t look as fried as it does normally, probably because washing it out and a bit of conditioning in the shower gave it a bit of a reprieve. Without makeup, Lu Han’s skin seems nearly flawless, although it does look a bit thin under the eyes. Jongin thinks about the spots on his own face a little self-consciously.
“Hyung,” he asks, “are you really twenty-two?”
“Yeah,” Lu Han replies, matter-of-fact, and Jongin thinks that that’s to be expected, really, because the closer he gets, he sees that there’re actually shadows of all sorts of weird wrinkles across Lu Han’s face, truly befitting of a twenty-two-year-old. Like across his forehead, and all those smile lines, next to his mouth. It’s a pretty nice-looking mouth, even with the scar right below the bottom lip. Jongin doesn’t know how it got there, but he figures it wasn’t something too exciting.
“You’re staring,” Lu Han says, tearing his gaze abruptly from the machine to look at Jongin, and Jongin feels an odd twinge of guilt. He opens his mouth to apologise, but he doesn’t get to do it, because Lu Han’s moved closer and closed whatever little distance was left between them. To think that he was just thinking about mouths too. It’s nothing special or exceptional, almost too quick to be registered, something akin to a goodnight kiss, but it’s a kiss nonetheless, but there’s a bit of a linger that Lu Han puts into it, a soft, full pressure that feels like maybe he’s long wanted or waited to try it. The funny thing is, Jongin doesn’t really mind.
What happens next:
Jongin stumbles back to the front of his room, sticking the key card into the slot in the door and barely missing. There’s a series of loud beeps that jars with the quiet hotel music playing in the background, some blandly generic, pleasant-sounding tinkering on a piano. Down the hallway there’s the sound of a heavy wooden door being closed.
“Where did you go,” Kyungsoo mumbles, half-asleep, covers up to his neck.
“I went to check out the ice-dispensing machine,” Jongin replies, equally dazed.
When he next wakes up, no thanks to Baekhyun drawing the curtains so wide so early in the morning and making a hell of a fuss over the view, he’s not sure if it was something he dreamt up, fat as the excesses of the Ritz’s room service menu. And Jongin knows how excessive it is (very), because they were all throwing a fit over how expensive everything was just last night.
*
“You look like shit,” is the first thing that Sehun says when he sees Jongin.
“Good morning to you too,” Jongin tells him, shoving huge spoonfuls of sugary cereal into his mouth in order to make up for the fact that he feels like shit too. Sehun puts his plate down and starts peppering it heavily. It’s all just eggs. Scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, sunny-side-ups. There’s also an omelette.
“Don’t judge me,” Sehun interjects as soon as Jongin directs a look of bewildered disgust at him. “I flipped through the room service menu before coming down and all I could focus on were the eggs.”
The journey back to the hotel room to get all their luggage back down to the lobby is one marred by the ongoing struggle between the want to sleep and the will not to in Jongin’s head. They’re due for another flight in three hours’ time, and when they touch down in Bangkok, it’s another round of rehearsals with barely enough time to hit the pillow before getting ready for the concert tomorrow. Jongin’s pretty sure he feels nauseous, but maybe it’s just the milk talking. Even the elevator music sounds like death metal, and Joonmyun doesn’t help matters by declaring at the top of his voice, “Tight schedule today! Everyone meet in the second floor lounge in thirty minutes!” It echoes off the walls and lands right on the back of Jongin’s head, right where it hurts the most. His entire skull feels like the repeated target of a particularly zealous tennis racket.
Seated right smack in the middle of the corridor is the ice-dispensing machine. It seems especially smug this morning, more smug than it seemed last night, almost glistening with an air of triumph, if ice-dispensing machines can look triumphant. Jongin stands outside his room, just staring at it, waiting for Baekhyun and Kyungsoo to finish arguing about whether they should take the chocolate bars out of the minibar.
“Had a good night’s sleep?” the machine asks.
That can’t be right. Machines don’t talk.
The twelve of them gather in front of the lift lobby together with their managers, anxiously checking if they’ve all gotten their passports and wallets and other important items like they always do every time they wander from country to country. Someone left their passport in the hotel room one time and remembered it only when they were about to leave the hotel. That wasn’t fun.
One lift arrives and eight of them squeeze in, with a duffel bag barely making it, stoppering the lift doors. See you downstairs, Kyungsoo mouths to Jongin, and Jongin nods, letting the migraine swim around in his head. It couldn’t possibly feel any worse at this point. The lamp lights up above another lift, so it’s probably the next one to arrive. Everyone who’s left wanders generally in its direction, and so does Jongin, until the luggage trailing behind him bumps into someone else’s luggage as they cross paths. Jongin stops in his tracks.
“Had a good night’s sleep?” Lu Han asks, stopping in front of the lift as well to curl an arm around Jongin’s shoulder, his other hand resting on the handle of his luggage.
“I feel like shit,” Jongin replies, enunciating every syllable clearly. He rubs his right eye to drive in the point.
“Is that right,” Lu Han frowns, looking sorry for him. One of the elevators chime. “Maybe you should get some sleep on the flight. I can lend you my neck pillow.”
“Okay,” Jongin says, not quite aware of what’s going on. What? “Thanks.”
*
Contrary to popular perception, EXO-M and EXO-K do spend a lot of time together when it’s not promotions season (which it hasn’t been for some time now), so behind the whole “we are one” shtick, there is actually a tiny grain of truth. Most of this time is spent on planes and in airports. In their particular line of work, if it’s not promotions season, that means that it’s preparing-for-the-next-album season or touring season, or both at once. Travelling this frequently has its pros and cons, but often more pros than cons, which are usually solved by nurturing the useful skill of falling asleep on demand, anywhere, anytime.
“There’s this thing called Baidu in China,” Yixing once explained while they were in transit from one city to another, huddled together in the departure lounge. “They’re like fancafes. This guy,” he said, jerking a thumb at Lu Han, “follows like a million of them, all the ones that are about him. How vain.”
“Yeah, all sorts,” Lu Han had said then. “Every one that’s got my name in the bar description.”
Today they’re taking an afternoon flight back to Seoul. Lu Han switches off his phone, but not before butting the screen in front of Jongin’s face while they’re queueing up to board the plane - is that him? Is that him falling asleep against a security barrier?
“I got this off one of your fansites,” Lu Han explains.
“What’s this,” Baekhyun cuts in from behind, sticking his head in the gap between their shoulders.
“Me practising how to power nap,” Jongin says quickly in self-defence, and Lu Han clicks his tongue in mock-disapproval.
Ever since the Ritz-Carlton, which Jongin is inclined to think about in terms of that trip to the corridor just outside his hotel room, Lu Han has never shown signs that anything strange occurred between them, which means that the status quo is preserved with the usual jabs they take at each other. That’s okay, because sometimes the quality of dreams can take on a form that is entirely too believable, so all Jongin does is try to internalise it, cut down on the confusion, and put it down to subtle changes in his brain chemistry. It takes two hands to clap, but in this case, one or more hands isn’t doing the clapping, and Jongin sure isn’t silly enough to go around clapping on his own, especially if clapping isn’t even supposed to be done in the first place.
*
That isolated incident aside, things didn’t always use to be like this, of course. Only in recent memory does Jongin recall getting dragged through airports and concert venues by Lu Han from time to time while being physically and verbally harassed by him. Not that he hates it or anything, although he isn’t all that pleased about getting teased this often. It’s good that Lu Han sometimes turns his attention to bullying the other group members so that he gets a bit of a break. Six months or a year ago they were close enough to film music videos and rehearse for showcases and play football together amiably, but somehow something changed along the way and now Jongin just allows Lu Han to full-on bug him whenever he wants. Perhaps it’s the deluge in end-of-year events. The more time you need to spend with someone, the more you find yourself adapting to his or her habits, something like that?
Lu Han never really knows what to do with the mic whenever he’s given one, which is just plain ridiculous since he’s such a chatterbox behind the scenes. And because he’s almost always standing in the middle, next to Jongin, they always give him a mic.
“Just take it,” he would say, shoving the mic towards Jongin while someone else is busy nattering away at the camera.
“No,” Jongin would reply. He’s not in charge of talking anyway.
“You should have taken it,” Lu Han would say afterwards, when they give the mics back to the staff at the end of the interview.
“No,” Jongin would insist, on principle, but also because it’s fun to mess with someone who messes with you occasionally. It’s almost becoming a principle in and of itself.
*
When Jongin was eight, he got into a bit of trouble at school. The details are a little fuzzy, but according to his sister, who dredges it up from time to time, apparently the entire incident had happened because he talked back to a teacher.
“He basically,” she would say to their other cousins at family gatherings, tipsy on makgeolli.
“Shut up, sis,” he would say.
“He basically said that he wouldn’t listen to her because she didn’t treat him with respect,” she would continue, giggling. It wasn’t even that funny. “She told my mother that he said - these are his own words, okay - that he didn’t like people who asserted their authority carelessly. Where did he even learn that? He was like, eight. What a brat.”
That incident made Jongin detest school for one whole week. He was made to sit at the back of class all alone for an entire afternoon, that he remembered, which was probably why he detested school for said whole week. Afterwards he developed some kind of damning Pavlovian grudge against figures of authority and also a damning grudging respect for the very same figures of authority, which was probably the after-effect of having sat out an entire afternoon at the back of class. Traumatising events such as those could have lasting consequences on impressionable eight-year-olds such as he.
Back in June there were rumours floating around the net (dug up by amateur expert internet sleuth Park Chanyeol) that he hated Joonmyun, and prepubescent girls were posting stuff on message boards like “idiot kim jongin ㅠ ㅠ must you be so rude to joonmyun-oppa ㅠ ㅠ ㅠ ㅠ”. Jongin didn’t hate Joonmyun, so he didn’t know why people thought so. Joonmyun was generous and paid for his food and was occasionally actually funny if sometimes annoying, and was generally a pretty good hyung to have around. Jongin just wished that Joonmyun would lighten up sometimes and stop pretending to be a caring father of eleven other motherless children. Things are better when cameras aren’t out in full force.
Jongin prefers it when people engage him in other ways. Sometimes he’s not exactly sure what to do with strangers and will completely ignore all decent attempts at social interaction until someone initiates a game of tag or does something stupid like Baekhyun’s light dance. He’s just not sure if it’s because he’s fond of people who act like this or because people who are do stuff like this are just easier to get along with or are more endearing or more enduring or all of the above. Either way, it explains a lot.
*
They’re waiting backstage at the Gayo Daejun - it’s about fifteen minutes before they’re due to go on stage. Backstage is a bit like pandemonium. Someone’s mic has gone missing and the crewmembers are desperately trying to look for it. Jongin fiddles with his own, the tape sticking to the hair on the back of his neck. It’s probably sometime past eleven thirty, which was what the clock in the dressing room said when he last checked.
“You’re a fascinating thing, you know that,” Lu Han remarks next to him, punching him on the arm. Is that a compliment or an insult? “You always look so lethargic, but later I know you’ll look like someone gave you too much Red Bull or something.”
“Hyung,” Jongin retorts, mind going blank for a split second, “I’m not lethargic. I’m very awake.”
“Don’t talk back to your elders.”
“Don’t assert your authority carelessly, hyung.”
There is probably no such authority to assert on Lu Han’s part, anyway. It’s funny because he’s one of the oldest in the group, and to Jongin, someone born in 1990 is basically ancient, but 99% of the time he acts like he’s a ten-year-old in a toy store. Jongin lets him land another mock punch before going for one himself. Yes, it’s childish behaviour, but you know what they say about taking an eye for an eye. Jongin’s let Lu Han take about two eyes now, so punching him back just once is more than fair.
“Rude,” Lu Han says in response to a well-aimed attack on the space just below his left rib, but there’s no malice in his voice. In fact, he seems to be pretty happy about it, the edge of one eye crinkling as his face twists itself into one of his signature wide, ugly, ear-to-ear smiles. Jongin wonders silently how someone’s face can rearrange itself that way, and waits for the signal for standby to come in.
On the morning of New Year’s Eve EXO-M leaves the dorm really early to catch a flight to Jiangsu. They don’t really make a din, but it’s enough noise that Jongin is roused from his sleep. The sun isn’t even up yet. When he exits his room, scratching his back, they’re all stuck around the front door. Manager-hyung looks panicked. Sehun and Chanyeol are sitting on the couch, looking like death, and Chanyeol looks especially crazy with his eyes wide open and unblinking. When Minseok gets out the door and starts to close it, Sehun waves a lazy hand and drawls, “Bye hyungs, happy new year.” Jongin joins in, waving his hands and mumbling, “Yeah, come back soon, happy new year.” At least he woke up and went out into the living room to say it; surely he gets points for trying.
*
In the corridor, in the basement of the SM building, that’s where Jongin first kisses a boy. Or that’s where he kisses a boy for the second time, but it could really be fifty-fifty. Either way, specifically, that’s where he first (or for a second time) kisses Lu Han. It’s nothing special or exceptional, almost too quick to be registered, but that is a physical attribute, and if you wanted to talk about in terms of its relational significance, then perhaps it’s something special or exceptional, or both. Lu Han’s mouth is soft and he smells like sweat in an almost oddly clean way.
What happens:
There’s a vending machine right smack in the middle of the corridor just left of the dance studio in the basement. When Jongin was a trainee there used to be a different, older one, but he supposes that it finally conked out after years of getting kicked in all directions for not dispensing the correct amount of change, or even the correct item that was ordered. It catches Jongin’s attention when they’re going to the dance studio for practice, since they haven’t went to the one in the basement for a while. The new vending machine looks tall, shiny and menacing, and almost hums with an air of challenge, as if it were declaring, “Use me if you dare, I’m gonna eat all your coins and not even spit anything out.” It is ridiculously well-stocked, though. So at eleven p.m., when everyone’s been knocked out by the rigorous rehearsing for their comeback, Jongin exits the dance studio to get something cold and sugary to drink. What he doesn’t expect when he goes out is that Lu Han is already there, in front of the vending machine, looking at everything as if deciding what to buy.
“Hey,” he says as Jongin approaches. “What are you doing?”
“I wanted to check out the vending machine,” Jongin replies, pointing at it.
“You can go first,” Lu Han tells him, stepping aside to let Jongin take a look. “I can’t decide what to get.”
The vending machine is sitting up against the wall, looking very expensive and very complicated and as if it would crash if you pressed the wrong button. “Coins only”, says the label next to the coin slot. Jongin scans the items behind the glass one by one, then settles for depositing 700 won’s worth of coins and jamming a finger into the button that’s in front of a row of Diet Cokes. One can comes trundling down into the bottom compartment, embarrassingly loud in the empty, quiet corridor.
“I’ll get that for you,” Lu Han says, bending down to reach into the machine. The light catches on the tips of his hair and on the sweat on the back of his neck. Because he’s leaning forward, Jongin can see up the roots of his hair, which have all grown out at least a couple of centimetres, like the dark undergrowth in a field of grass. You’d think that the coordi noonas would have been all over that at least two days ago, but apparently, they haven’t. When Lu Han straightens back up, can of Coke in hand, his hair flops back into position, and it isn’t so visible anymore.
“Hyung,” Jongin asks, “I feel like something like this has happened before?”
“Yeah,” Lu Han replies, matter-of-fact, and moves in closer and closes whatever little distance was left between them. As Lu Han moves in closer he braces himself on Jongin’s forearms. The can of Diet Coke that he’s holding comes into contact with Jongin’s bare skin, the patch of skin right next to the crook of his right elbow, and it’s freezing cold, which makes the crook of Jongin’s right elbow actually start to itch. He’s a little sensitive that way. The kiss is nothing special or exceptional, but just like the last time (if it ever happened, although it seems now that it did happen), there’s a bit of a linger that Lu Han puts into it, a soft, full pressure that feels like maybe he’s just testing the waters, maybe he wants to see how Jongin will react. So Jongin reacts by running his tongue lightly against the scar nestled against Lu Han’s bottom lip. When Lu Han pulls away, his eyes are wide with surprise.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” Jongin confesses, but to be honest, he didn’t know he’d been wanting to do that for a while until like, five seconds ago.
What happens next:
Another can of Diet Coke comes trundling down into the bottom compartment, embarrassingly loud in the empty, quiet corridor. Lu Han bends down again and reaches into the vending machine and pulls it out, then thrusts the can into Jongin’s hand. It’s freezing cold.
“Lucky,” he says. “I guess we can both have one.”
“Thanks,” Jongin says.
“We should go back,” Lu Han offers, smiling and turning on his heel. Jongin follows, quietly confused, and the glow from the fluorescent lamps on the ceiling seems to ebb and flow, as if agreeing with him.
When they get back into the dance studio Lu Han makes a beeline for where Sehun and Yixing are, engaged in a staring contest, hands braced on each other’s shoulders. Jongin heads for where Kyungsoo is seated on the edge of the stage, the only silent one in the room; right next to him, Chanyeol, Baekhyun and Jongdae are making a huge din playing some kind of game that involves a serious amount of gesturing. Jongin sits down.
“Hey,” Kyungsoo begins, swinging his legs back and forth, “where did you go?”
Jongin blinks, then tries to recall everything that happened in the last five minutes.
“I,” he says with a note of finality, shoving the can of Coke in Kyungsoo’s face, “went to check out the vending machine.”
Kyungsoo takes a look at the Coke, then says, frowning, “Try not to drink too much of that stuff, it’s bad for your health.” From across the room there’s the snap of aluminium and the hiss of carbon dioxide, and Jongin opens his own can.
*
The next time they meet up for rehearsals, the coordi noonas have had their way with Lu Han’s hair, and although the roots aren’t visible anymore, it seems to have become one shade brighter in the entire spectrum of yellow. Lu Han’s hair shines like a bright orange halo in the middle of the room, reminding Jongin of the time Chanyeol’s hair was nearly the same colour just a couple of months ago and how Baekhyun would take the opportunity whenever he could to loudly remind everyone of the fact that it was exactly the same shade as the piss of someone who was very dehydrated. It hasn’t happened to Lu Han yet, but Jongin suspects that it won’t happen, because no one really makes fun of Lu Han in that vein, at least not yet.
There’s one part of the choreography in MAMA that Jongin is particularly fond of, even though it’s safe to say that he’s pretty fond of the entire thing. That one part only takes place when they’re performing as twelve, the part during the last chorus when both groups are facing each other. Jongin used to like it for an entirely different reason, with the wholeheartedness and sincerity of a giddy teenager about to make his debut in front of the entire nation. Back then the prospect of being one part of two halves made him incredibly excited, because promoting a group in this manner was virtually unheard of and he was glad to have eleven other people on the ride together with him. Back then, at the same time, Lu Han made him, if he were to be honest, a little nervous. He wouldn’t know if it was just Lu Han trying to look intense or if that was real aggression coming out of his eyes during those parts, while they danced facing each other. After watching the reruns of some performances, though, he thought he looked plenty intimidating himself. Maybe it was just payback.
Nowadays he gets the feeling that Lu Han is trying to up the ante on him whenever they practise. When he’s being serious about it his stare could bore holes through Jongin’s skull. During less serious run-throughs Jongin can’t decide if it’s him or something else that’s making Lu Han smile so wide the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes show up. Coupled together with the tied-up bangs and the gigantic nametag pinned to the front of his shirt, Lu Han looks five. Well, whatever. Jongin stares straight ahead and grins back, does what he always does and does best. Lets it hang in the air between them now, the “I’m going to get to know you better”, the “I’m going to figure you out”.
*
“Your passport is hanging out of your ass,” Sehun says, slapping Jongin’s butt as they get out of the van, but Jongin can’t be bothered to even turn his head around to give Sehun the evil eye, and settles for drawing his passport out of his back pocket and holding it in his hands. It was a mistake not to have worn gloves - the moment they step out into the open, Jongin can feel his fingertips start to freeze over. His sweater doesn’t have any pockets. At least he’s got his scarf.
“Do you have a spare pair of gloves? Or like, a glove?” he asks Sehun, but Sehun just deadpans, “I put them in my luggage,” and moves away to get his boarding pass from manager-hyung. What? Who in their right mind would put their gloves in their luggage when they’re headed for a country near the equator?
Jongin stands near the crossing all by himself while everyone else crowds around manager-hyung like a motley crew of birds. He rocks back and forth on his heels, watching other vehicles screech past him. Someone taps him on the shoulder - it’s Lu Han, holding a boarding pass.
“This is yours,” he says, then asks, “What’s wrong?” as Jongin sticks his air ticket between two random pages in his passport.
“My hands are cold,” Jongin tells him, but it comes out sounding whinier than he had intended for it to be.
“Really? Let’s try to keep at least one of them warm, then,” Lu Han suggests cheerfully, reaching for Jongin’s left hand and lacing their fingers together. Then he tucks both their hands into the pocket in his cardigan. Now they’re stuck together, side by side, bumping elbows like an unlikely pair of Siamese twins joined at the hands. If there was ever a pair of Siamese twins who were enjoined at the hands, Jongin can only imagine that it’d be highly inconvenient.
“Hyung, what’s the point,” he rolls his eyes, “your hand is colder than mine,” and Lu Han’s only response is to grasp his hand harder and push it deeper into his pocket, wriggling it around and saying, “Well, then we’ll just have to make it warmer.”
“It’s not working,” Jongin lies, because it’s plenty warm in there. There’s a small pocket of air between their palms where their hands do not quite fit. Jongin looks away and holds on tighter. It might be enough to close the distance.
5006 words
a relationship in progress.
written for loveismix and remixed wonderfully here by anonymous.
In the corridor, on the fourteenth floor of the Ritz-Carlton, that’s where Jongin first kisses a boy. More specifically, that’s where he first kisses Lu Han. It’s nothing special or exceptional, almost too quick to be registered, something akin to a goodnight kiss, but it’s a kiss nonetheless, and that sets off the alarm bells in his head. Lu Han’s mouth is soft and he smells like the soap in the hotel bathroom. What?
What happens:
There’s an ice-dispensing machine right smack in the middle of the corridor, probably for the convenience of all guests who would rather not wait ridiculous amounts of time for the service staff to deliver buckets of ice from the kitchen. It catches Jongin’s attention when they’re going to their rooms. The thing is tall, shiny and menacing, and almost hums with an air of challenge, as if it were declaring, “Come over here, I dare you to use me.” He barely takes his eyes off it while Kyungsoo and Baekhyun struggle to get the door open by way of key card. So at three a.m., when everyone else is just settling into bed, Jongin is still wide awake, either because of the time difference or the adrenaline that’s still in his system, and he decides to give it a go. What he doesn’t expect when he goes out is that Lu Han is already parading the corridor, iPod in hand. If he didn’t wave at Jongin at sight, Jongin might have thought that he was sleepwalking.
“What are you doing?” he asks Jongin.
“I wanted to check out the ice-dispensing machine,” Jongin replies, pointing at it.
“That’s a really weird thing to do at this hour,” Lu Han tells him, sidling up next to him where he’s already inspecting the machine, but doesn’t offer any explanation as to why he’s loitering around the corridor too. Maybe he couldn’t sleep either.
The dispenser is sitting up against the wall, looking very expensive and very complicated and as if it would crash if you pressed the wrong button. Jongin scans the buttons one by one, then settles for jamming a finger into a particularly conspicuous-looking one, since he doesn’t really understand what the English labels say. A stream of ice cubes comes trundling down, embarrassingly loud in the empty, quiet corridor.
“Wow,” Jongin says, “haha.”
“That looks fun,” Lu Han says, looking down the machine cautiously.
At eye level, Lu Han’s hair is still a bit damp, presumably from showering. Normally all Jongin gets when they’re standing in their usual formation is an eyeful of Lu Han’s frizzy, bottle-blonde hair, and Jongin suspects that other than the endless amounts of tampering that it’s been subject to, it’s really the bleaching that’s doing it. His own hair isn’t this terrible, after a couple of dye jobs. Nonetheless, Lu Han’s hair now doesn’t look as fried as it does normally, probably because washing it out and a bit of conditioning in the shower gave it a bit of a reprieve. Without makeup, Lu Han’s skin seems nearly flawless, although it does look a bit thin under the eyes. Jongin thinks about the spots on his own face a little self-consciously.
“Hyung,” he asks, “are you really twenty-two?”
“Yeah,” Lu Han replies, matter-of-fact, and Jongin thinks that that’s to be expected, really, because the closer he gets, he sees that there’re actually shadows of all sorts of weird wrinkles across Lu Han’s face, truly befitting of a twenty-two-year-old. Like across his forehead, and all those smile lines, next to his mouth. It’s a pretty nice-looking mouth, even with the scar right below the bottom lip. Jongin doesn’t know how it got there, but he figures it wasn’t something too exciting.
“You’re staring,” Lu Han says, tearing his gaze abruptly from the machine to look at Jongin, and Jongin feels an odd twinge of guilt. He opens his mouth to apologise, but he doesn’t get to do it, because Lu Han’s moved closer and closed whatever little distance was left between them. To think that he was just thinking about mouths too. It’s nothing special or exceptional, almost too quick to be registered, something akin to a goodnight kiss, but it’s a kiss nonetheless, but there’s a bit of a linger that Lu Han puts into it, a soft, full pressure that feels like maybe he’s long wanted or waited to try it. The funny thing is, Jongin doesn’t really mind.
What happens next:
Jongin stumbles back to the front of his room, sticking the key card into the slot in the door and barely missing. There’s a series of loud beeps that jars with the quiet hotel music playing in the background, some blandly generic, pleasant-sounding tinkering on a piano. Down the hallway there’s the sound of a heavy wooden door being closed.
“Where did you go,” Kyungsoo mumbles, half-asleep, covers up to his neck.
“I went to check out the ice-dispensing machine,” Jongin replies, equally dazed.
When he next wakes up, no thanks to Baekhyun drawing the curtains so wide so early in the morning and making a hell of a fuss over the view, he’s not sure if it was something he dreamt up, fat as the excesses of the Ritz’s room service menu. And Jongin knows how excessive it is (very), because they were all throwing a fit over how expensive everything was just last night.
*
“You look like shit,” is the first thing that Sehun says when he sees Jongin.
“Good morning to you too,” Jongin tells him, shoving huge spoonfuls of sugary cereal into his mouth in order to make up for the fact that he feels like shit too. Sehun puts his plate down and starts peppering it heavily. It’s all just eggs. Scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, sunny-side-ups. There’s also an omelette.
“Don’t judge me,” Sehun interjects as soon as Jongin directs a look of bewildered disgust at him. “I flipped through the room service menu before coming down and all I could focus on were the eggs.”
The journey back to the hotel room to get all their luggage back down to the lobby is one marred by the ongoing struggle between the want to sleep and the will not to in Jongin’s head. They’re due for another flight in three hours’ time, and when they touch down in Bangkok, it’s another round of rehearsals with barely enough time to hit the pillow before getting ready for the concert tomorrow. Jongin’s pretty sure he feels nauseous, but maybe it’s just the milk talking. Even the elevator music sounds like death metal, and Joonmyun doesn’t help matters by declaring at the top of his voice, “Tight schedule today! Everyone meet in the second floor lounge in thirty minutes!” It echoes off the walls and lands right on the back of Jongin’s head, right where it hurts the most. His entire skull feels like the repeated target of a particularly zealous tennis racket.
Seated right smack in the middle of the corridor is the ice-dispensing machine. It seems especially smug this morning, more smug than it seemed last night, almost glistening with an air of triumph, if ice-dispensing machines can look triumphant. Jongin stands outside his room, just staring at it, waiting for Baekhyun and Kyungsoo to finish arguing about whether they should take the chocolate bars out of the minibar.
“Had a good night’s sleep?” the machine asks.
That can’t be right. Machines don’t talk.
The twelve of them gather in front of the lift lobby together with their managers, anxiously checking if they’ve all gotten their passports and wallets and other important items like they always do every time they wander from country to country. Someone left their passport in the hotel room one time and remembered it only when they were about to leave the hotel. That wasn’t fun.
One lift arrives and eight of them squeeze in, with a duffel bag barely making it, stoppering the lift doors. See you downstairs, Kyungsoo mouths to Jongin, and Jongin nods, letting the migraine swim around in his head. It couldn’t possibly feel any worse at this point. The lamp lights up above another lift, so it’s probably the next one to arrive. Everyone who’s left wanders generally in its direction, and so does Jongin, until the luggage trailing behind him bumps into someone else’s luggage as they cross paths. Jongin stops in his tracks.
“Had a good night’s sleep?” Lu Han asks, stopping in front of the lift as well to curl an arm around Jongin’s shoulder, his other hand resting on the handle of his luggage.
“I feel like shit,” Jongin replies, enunciating every syllable clearly. He rubs his right eye to drive in the point.
“Is that right,” Lu Han frowns, looking sorry for him. One of the elevators chime. “Maybe you should get some sleep on the flight. I can lend you my neck pillow.”
“Okay,” Jongin says, not quite aware of what’s going on. What? “Thanks.”
*
Contrary to popular perception, EXO-M and EXO-K do spend a lot of time together when it’s not promotions season (which it hasn’t been for some time now), so behind the whole “we are one” shtick, there is actually a tiny grain of truth. Most of this time is spent on planes and in airports. In their particular line of work, if it’s not promotions season, that means that it’s preparing-for-the-next-album season or touring season, or both at once. Travelling this frequently has its pros and cons, but often more pros than cons, which are usually solved by nurturing the useful skill of falling asleep on demand, anywhere, anytime.
“There’s this thing called Baidu in China,” Yixing once explained while they were in transit from one city to another, huddled together in the departure lounge. “They’re like fancafes. This guy,” he said, jerking a thumb at Lu Han, “follows like a million of them, all the ones that are about him. How vain.”
“Yeah, all sorts,” Lu Han had said then. “Every one that’s got my name in the bar description.”
Today they’re taking an afternoon flight back to Seoul. Lu Han switches off his phone, but not before butting the screen in front of Jongin’s face while they’re queueing up to board the plane - is that him? Is that him falling asleep against a security barrier?
“I got this off one of your fansites,” Lu Han explains.
“What’s this,” Baekhyun cuts in from behind, sticking his head in the gap between their shoulders.
“Me practising how to power nap,” Jongin says quickly in self-defence, and Lu Han clicks his tongue in mock-disapproval.
Ever since the Ritz-Carlton, which Jongin is inclined to think about in terms of that trip to the corridor just outside his hotel room, Lu Han has never shown signs that anything strange occurred between them, which means that the status quo is preserved with the usual jabs they take at each other. That’s okay, because sometimes the quality of dreams can take on a form that is entirely too believable, so all Jongin does is try to internalise it, cut down on the confusion, and put it down to subtle changes in his brain chemistry. It takes two hands to clap, but in this case, one or more hands isn’t doing the clapping, and Jongin sure isn’t silly enough to go around clapping on his own, especially if clapping isn’t even supposed to be done in the first place.
*
That isolated incident aside, things didn’t always use to be like this, of course. Only in recent memory does Jongin recall getting dragged through airports and concert venues by Lu Han from time to time while being physically and verbally harassed by him. Not that he hates it or anything, although he isn’t all that pleased about getting teased this often. It’s good that Lu Han sometimes turns his attention to bullying the other group members so that he gets a bit of a break. Six months or a year ago they were close enough to film music videos and rehearse for showcases and play football together amiably, but somehow something changed along the way and now Jongin just allows Lu Han to full-on bug him whenever he wants. Perhaps it’s the deluge in end-of-year events. The more time you need to spend with someone, the more you find yourself adapting to his or her habits, something like that?
Lu Han never really knows what to do with the mic whenever he’s given one, which is just plain ridiculous since he’s such a chatterbox behind the scenes. And because he’s almost always standing in the middle, next to Jongin, they always give him a mic.
“Just take it,” he would say, shoving the mic towards Jongin while someone else is busy nattering away at the camera.
“No,” Jongin would reply. He’s not in charge of talking anyway.
“You should have taken it,” Lu Han would say afterwards, when they give the mics back to the staff at the end of the interview.
“No,” Jongin would insist, on principle, but also because it’s fun to mess with someone who messes with you occasionally. It’s almost becoming a principle in and of itself.
*
When Jongin was eight, he got into a bit of trouble at school. The details are a little fuzzy, but according to his sister, who dredges it up from time to time, apparently the entire incident had happened because he talked back to a teacher.
“He basically,” she would say to their other cousins at family gatherings, tipsy on makgeolli.
“Shut up, sis,” he would say.
“He basically said that he wouldn’t listen to her because she didn’t treat him with respect,” she would continue, giggling. It wasn’t even that funny. “She told my mother that he said - these are his own words, okay - that he didn’t like people who asserted their authority carelessly. Where did he even learn that? He was like, eight. What a brat.”
That incident made Jongin detest school for one whole week. He was made to sit at the back of class all alone for an entire afternoon, that he remembered, which was probably why he detested school for said whole week. Afterwards he developed some kind of damning Pavlovian grudge against figures of authority and also a damning grudging respect for the very same figures of authority, which was probably the after-effect of having sat out an entire afternoon at the back of class. Traumatising events such as those could have lasting consequences on impressionable eight-year-olds such as he.
Back in June there were rumours floating around the net (dug up by amateur expert internet sleuth Park Chanyeol) that he hated Joonmyun, and prepubescent girls were posting stuff on message boards like “idiot kim jongin ㅠ ㅠ must you be so rude to joonmyun-oppa ㅠ ㅠ ㅠ ㅠ”. Jongin didn’t hate Joonmyun, so he didn’t know why people thought so. Joonmyun was generous and paid for his food and was occasionally actually funny if sometimes annoying, and was generally a pretty good hyung to have around. Jongin just wished that Joonmyun would lighten up sometimes and stop pretending to be a caring father of eleven other motherless children. Things are better when cameras aren’t out in full force.
Jongin prefers it when people engage him in other ways. Sometimes he’s not exactly sure what to do with strangers and will completely ignore all decent attempts at social interaction until someone initiates a game of tag or does something stupid like Baekhyun’s light dance. He’s just not sure if it’s because he’s fond of people who act like this or because people who are do stuff like this are just easier to get along with or are more endearing or more enduring or all of the above. Either way, it explains a lot.
*
They’re waiting backstage at the Gayo Daejun - it’s about fifteen minutes before they’re due to go on stage. Backstage is a bit like pandemonium. Someone’s mic has gone missing and the crewmembers are desperately trying to look for it. Jongin fiddles with his own, the tape sticking to the hair on the back of his neck. It’s probably sometime past eleven thirty, which was what the clock in the dressing room said when he last checked.
“You’re a fascinating thing, you know that,” Lu Han remarks next to him, punching him on the arm. Is that a compliment or an insult? “You always look so lethargic, but later I know you’ll look like someone gave you too much Red Bull or something.”
“Hyung,” Jongin retorts, mind going blank for a split second, “I’m not lethargic. I’m very awake.”
“Don’t talk back to your elders.”
“Don’t assert your authority carelessly, hyung.”
There is probably no such authority to assert on Lu Han’s part, anyway. It’s funny because he’s one of the oldest in the group, and to Jongin, someone born in 1990 is basically ancient, but 99% of the time he acts like he’s a ten-year-old in a toy store. Jongin lets him land another mock punch before going for one himself. Yes, it’s childish behaviour, but you know what they say about taking an eye for an eye. Jongin’s let Lu Han take about two eyes now, so punching him back just once is more than fair.
“Rude,” Lu Han says in response to a well-aimed attack on the space just below his left rib, but there’s no malice in his voice. In fact, he seems to be pretty happy about it, the edge of one eye crinkling as his face twists itself into one of his signature wide, ugly, ear-to-ear smiles. Jongin wonders silently how someone’s face can rearrange itself that way, and waits for the signal for standby to come in.
On the morning of New Year’s Eve EXO-M leaves the dorm really early to catch a flight to Jiangsu. They don’t really make a din, but it’s enough noise that Jongin is roused from his sleep. The sun isn’t even up yet. When he exits his room, scratching his back, they’re all stuck around the front door. Manager-hyung looks panicked. Sehun and Chanyeol are sitting on the couch, looking like death, and Chanyeol looks especially crazy with his eyes wide open and unblinking. When Minseok gets out the door and starts to close it, Sehun waves a lazy hand and drawls, “Bye hyungs, happy new year.” Jongin joins in, waving his hands and mumbling, “Yeah, come back soon, happy new year.” At least he woke up and went out into the living room to say it; surely he gets points for trying.
*
In the corridor, in the basement of the SM building, that’s where Jongin first kisses a boy. Or that’s where he kisses a boy for the second time, but it could really be fifty-fifty. Either way, specifically, that’s where he first (or for a second time) kisses Lu Han. It’s nothing special or exceptional, almost too quick to be registered, but that is a physical attribute, and if you wanted to talk about in terms of its relational significance, then perhaps it’s something special or exceptional, or both. Lu Han’s mouth is soft and he smells like sweat in an almost oddly clean way.
What happens:
There’s a vending machine right smack in the middle of the corridor just left of the dance studio in the basement. When Jongin was a trainee there used to be a different, older one, but he supposes that it finally conked out after years of getting kicked in all directions for not dispensing the correct amount of change, or even the correct item that was ordered. It catches Jongin’s attention when they’re going to the dance studio for practice, since they haven’t went to the one in the basement for a while. The new vending machine looks tall, shiny and menacing, and almost hums with an air of challenge, as if it were declaring, “Use me if you dare, I’m gonna eat all your coins and not even spit anything out.” It is ridiculously well-stocked, though. So at eleven p.m., when everyone’s been knocked out by the rigorous rehearsing for their comeback, Jongin exits the dance studio to get something cold and sugary to drink. What he doesn’t expect when he goes out is that Lu Han is already there, in front of the vending machine, looking at everything as if deciding what to buy.
“Hey,” he says as Jongin approaches. “What are you doing?”
“I wanted to check out the vending machine,” Jongin replies, pointing at it.
“You can go first,” Lu Han tells him, stepping aside to let Jongin take a look. “I can’t decide what to get.”
The vending machine is sitting up against the wall, looking very expensive and very complicated and as if it would crash if you pressed the wrong button. “Coins only”, says the label next to the coin slot. Jongin scans the items behind the glass one by one, then settles for depositing 700 won’s worth of coins and jamming a finger into the button that’s in front of a row of Diet Cokes. One can comes trundling down into the bottom compartment, embarrassingly loud in the empty, quiet corridor.
“I’ll get that for you,” Lu Han says, bending down to reach into the machine. The light catches on the tips of his hair and on the sweat on the back of his neck. Because he’s leaning forward, Jongin can see up the roots of his hair, which have all grown out at least a couple of centimetres, like the dark undergrowth in a field of grass. You’d think that the coordi noonas would have been all over that at least two days ago, but apparently, they haven’t. When Lu Han straightens back up, can of Coke in hand, his hair flops back into position, and it isn’t so visible anymore.
“Hyung,” Jongin asks, “I feel like something like this has happened before?”
“Yeah,” Lu Han replies, matter-of-fact, and moves in closer and closes whatever little distance was left between them. As Lu Han moves in closer he braces himself on Jongin’s forearms. The can of Diet Coke that he’s holding comes into contact with Jongin’s bare skin, the patch of skin right next to the crook of his right elbow, and it’s freezing cold, which makes the crook of Jongin’s right elbow actually start to itch. He’s a little sensitive that way. The kiss is nothing special or exceptional, but just like the last time (if it ever happened, although it seems now that it did happen), there’s a bit of a linger that Lu Han puts into it, a soft, full pressure that feels like maybe he’s just testing the waters, maybe he wants to see how Jongin will react. So Jongin reacts by running his tongue lightly against the scar nestled against Lu Han’s bottom lip. When Lu Han pulls away, his eyes are wide with surprise.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” Jongin confesses, but to be honest, he didn’t know he’d been wanting to do that for a while until like, five seconds ago.
What happens next:
Another can of Diet Coke comes trundling down into the bottom compartment, embarrassingly loud in the empty, quiet corridor. Lu Han bends down again and reaches into the vending machine and pulls it out, then thrusts the can into Jongin’s hand. It’s freezing cold.
“Lucky,” he says. “I guess we can both have one.”
“Thanks,” Jongin says.
“We should go back,” Lu Han offers, smiling and turning on his heel. Jongin follows, quietly confused, and the glow from the fluorescent lamps on the ceiling seems to ebb and flow, as if agreeing with him.
When they get back into the dance studio Lu Han makes a beeline for where Sehun and Yixing are, engaged in a staring contest, hands braced on each other’s shoulders. Jongin heads for where Kyungsoo is seated on the edge of the stage, the only silent one in the room; right next to him, Chanyeol, Baekhyun and Jongdae are making a huge din playing some kind of game that involves a serious amount of gesturing. Jongin sits down.
“Hey,” Kyungsoo begins, swinging his legs back and forth, “where did you go?”
Jongin blinks, then tries to recall everything that happened in the last five minutes.
“I,” he says with a note of finality, shoving the can of Coke in Kyungsoo’s face, “went to check out the vending machine.”
Kyungsoo takes a look at the Coke, then says, frowning, “Try not to drink too much of that stuff, it’s bad for your health.” From across the room there’s the snap of aluminium and the hiss of carbon dioxide, and Jongin opens his own can.
*
The next time they meet up for rehearsals, the coordi noonas have had their way with Lu Han’s hair, and although the roots aren’t visible anymore, it seems to have become one shade brighter in the entire spectrum of yellow. Lu Han’s hair shines like a bright orange halo in the middle of the room, reminding Jongin of the time Chanyeol’s hair was nearly the same colour just a couple of months ago and how Baekhyun would take the opportunity whenever he could to loudly remind everyone of the fact that it was exactly the same shade as the piss of someone who was very dehydrated. It hasn’t happened to Lu Han yet, but Jongin suspects that it won’t happen, because no one really makes fun of Lu Han in that vein, at least not yet.
There’s one part of the choreography in MAMA that Jongin is particularly fond of, even though it’s safe to say that he’s pretty fond of the entire thing. That one part only takes place when they’re performing as twelve, the part during the last chorus when both groups are facing each other. Jongin used to like it for an entirely different reason, with the wholeheartedness and sincerity of a giddy teenager about to make his debut in front of the entire nation. Back then the prospect of being one part of two halves made him incredibly excited, because promoting a group in this manner was virtually unheard of and he was glad to have eleven other people on the ride together with him. Back then, at the same time, Lu Han made him, if he were to be honest, a little nervous. He wouldn’t know if it was just Lu Han trying to look intense or if that was real aggression coming out of his eyes during those parts, while they danced facing each other. After watching the reruns of some performances, though, he thought he looked plenty intimidating himself. Maybe it was just payback.
Nowadays he gets the feeling that Lu Han is trying to up the ante on him whenever they practise. When he’s being serious about it his stare could bore holes through Jongin’s skull. During less serious run-throughs Jongin can’t decide if it’s him or something else that’s making Lu Han smile so wide the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes show up. Coupled together with the tied-up bangs and the gigantic nametag pinned to the front of his shirt, Lu Han looks five. Well, whatever. Jongin stares straight ahead and grins back, does what he always does and does best. Lets it hang in the air between them now, the “I’m going to get to know you better”, the “I’m going to figure you out”.
*
“Your passport is hanging out of your ass,” Sehun says, slapping Jongin’s butt as they get out of the van, but Jongin can’t be bothered to even turn his head around to give Sehun the evil eye, and settles for drawing his passport out of his back pocket and holding it in his hands. It was a mistake not to have worn gloves - the moment they step out into the open, Jongin can feel his fingertips start to freeze over. His sweater doesn’t have any pockets. At least he’s got his scarf.
“Do you have a spare pair of gloves? Or like, a glove?” he asks Sehun, but Sehun just deadpans, “I put them in my luggage,” and moves away to get his boarding pass from manager-hyung. What? Who in their right mind would put their gloves in their luggage when they’re headed for a country near the equator?
Jongin stands near the crossing all by himself while everyone else crowds around manager-hyung like a motley crew of birds. He rocks back and forth on his heels, watching other vehicles screech past him. Someone taps him on the shoulder - it’s Lu Han, holding a boarding pass.
“This is yours,” he says, then asks, “What’s wrong?” as Jongin sticks his air ticket between two random pages in his passport.
“My hands are cold,” Jongin tells him, but it comes out sounding whinier than he had intended for it to be.
“Really? Let’s try to keep at least one of them warm, then,” Lu Han suggests cheerfully, reaching for Jongin’s left hand and lacing their fingers together. Then he tucks both their hands into the pocket in his cardigan. Now they’re stuck together, side by side, bumping elbows like an unlikely pair of Siamese twins joined at the hands. If there was ever a pair of Siamese twins who were enjoined at the hands, Jongin can only imagine that it’d be highly inconvenient.
“Hyung, what’s the point,” he rolls his eyes, “your hand is colder than mine,” and Lu Han’s only response is to grasp his hand harder and push it deeper into his pocket, wriggling it around and saying, “Well, then we’ll just have to make it warmer.”
“It’s not working,” Jongin lies, because it’s plenty warm in there. There’s a small pocket of air between their palms where their hands do not quite fit. Jongin looks away and holds on tighter. It might be enough to close the distance.