KPop: Favors the Bold (Kris/Lay, NC-17) [2/3]

[maayacolabackup]

#


Amber laughs at him. “What do you mean things aren’t going well? You’re kind of on top of the world now, in idol terms. The next album is recorded already, and I see your band mates’ stupid faces every time I walk past The Face Shop. How is this not doing well?”

“Um, it’s nothing. I’m just stressed.”

“I can totally see the face you’re making right now in my head, Kevin,” Amber says. “You’re not ‘just stressed’, because you’re never ‘just’ anything.” She sighs, and he can hear her clicking her short, boyish nails on the table. “You’re an all or nothing sort of guy. So c’mon. Tell Amber what’s up, bro.”

“It’s just that things are… weird. With the other members.” Wu Fan scratches the side of his face in self-consternation. “With Yixing,” he adds reluctantly.

“Oh,” she says, drawing out the vowel. “With Yixing.”

“What’s that mean?” Wu Fan grabs a fistful of his own hair and pulls.

“Because things are always weird between you and Yixing, you dork.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Wu Fan says, and he’s glad he and Amber aren’t face to face right now because in another country, she can’t see him blushing.

“Kevin, I can hear you blushing, oh my god.” She laughs, and Wu Fan looks down at his socked feet. There’s a hole in the left one. “And you don’t need me to tell you that you and Yixing have something weird. Your whole friendship is weird. It’s like he makes fun of you, and drags you kicking and screaming out of your comfort zone, and you masochistically like it, all the while chastising him, and he likes that. It’s weird.”

“Uh.”

“Accurate?” She laughs again. “Why are you so worried about it, all of a sudden?”

“No reason,” Wu Fan says. “I’m… it’s nothing.” He scrambles. “How’s Victoria?”

“Okay,” Amber says. “I don’t believe you at all, but I’ll allow the subject change because I don’t want you to freak out.”

“You’re so kind.”

“I’m the best, really.”

They talk a while more, but maybe she can tell his heart isn’t in it, because she lets him go after about ten minutes.

“Thanks,” he says, and she makes a humming noise in the back of her throat.

“For what?” Amber asks. “Telling you what you already know?”

“Yeah,” Wu Fan says. “For that.”

Yixing is in the living room when Wu Fan emerges in search of food, lying in the middle of the floor, spread out like a starfish.

“What are you doing?” Wu Fan asks, and Yixing rolls his head to the side to look at Wu Fan.

“Relaxing,” he says. “You try it.”

Wu Fan means to say no, but instead he lies down next to Yixing and stretches out his arms and legs. His left arm hits the sofa, and his right leg hits the television stand. “I don’t fit,” Wu Fan says.

“Scoot closer to me, then,” Yixing says, and Wu Fan does. The tips of his fingers brush Yixing’s side, and Yixing moves into that touch instead of away from it. “Now close your eyes.”

“Okay,” Wu Fan says, and he follows instructions.

“What do you see?”

Wu Fan sees the back of his eyelids. “This is silly.” He feels awkward, and too long and tall, and he can feel the beating of Yixing’s heart, and the shift of his skin over his ribs, with a startling intensity. “It’s not comfortable. I should be doing something else.”

“It’s okay to be silly,” Yixing says. “Every once in a while.” Yixing chuckles, low, and Wu Fan can feel it and hear it. “You don’t always have to be ‘serious dragon leader’. People don’t live in boxes.”

Yixing makes fun of Wu Fan, and drags him kicking and screaming out of his comfort zone, and Wu Fan masochistically likes it.

“Get up and write a song or something,” Wu Fan says. “Do something with your life. I think all the red hair-dye killed your brain cells.”

Yixing laughs, because Wu Fan is forever chastising him, and Yixing likes that.

They both stay where they are, silent, breathing, until Jongdae comes out of his room. He stares down at them, perplexed, and Wu Fan is embarrassed, because he knows he looks stupid and he hates looking stupid more than most things. “Is this a bonding moment, or something?”

“I’m writing a song,” Yixing says. “And Wu Fan is being serious dragon leader.”

“All right,” Jongdae says. “Whatever floats your boat.”

And Yixing laughs louder, because Jongdae uses the wrong Mandarin word for boat, and Wu Fan hates that the sound is so addicting. Yixing rolls onto his stomach and throws an arm around Wu Fan’s waist.

“Is your boat floating?” Yixing asks, and Wu Fan keeps his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“No,” Wu Fan says, because he is drowning.


#


When Yixing dances, Wu Fan forgets what he’s doing, what he’s supposed to be doing, and what he just did, because it’s that beautiful. Yixing moves like he was made to dance, and it’s mesmerizing, to watch him pick up choreography in moments and move sleek and smooth across the floor like he’s the only one dancing.

“Kris, are you even paying attention?” Their choreographer asks, and Wu Fan tries, but he can’t take his eyes of Yixing.

“You should learn the choreo,” Yixing tells him later, “instead of watching me.”

“I’d rather watch you,” Wu Fan says, before he can stop himself, and Yixing seems caught off-guard, but he shakes himself, and smiled crookedly at Wu Fan.

“You can’t do that on stage,” Yixing says, with a laugh in his eyes. “Just watch me, I mean.”

But Wu Fan can, and does, and he’s never nervous, because as he goes through the choreography, he remembers the next step by imagining Yixing doing it in front of the rehearsal room mirrors.


#


“Do you think there’s something… strange about my relationship with Yixing, lately?”

He’s brought Zitao out for ice cream, because in Korea, where they’re headed tomorrow, he won’t be able to do that without hundreds of pictures appearing on the internet a few seconds after he steps out of the door. It’s not so bad here. Two or three cameras are better than forty.

Zitao blinks at him, and takes another bite of his ice cream. He gets some on his nose, and Wu Fan picks up his napkin and reaches across the table to wipe it off with a sigh. “No?”

“Why’d you answer that like a question?” Wu Fan asks, licking at his own cone a lot more delicately than Zitao, and doesn’t smile even though it tastes delicious because there might be cameras and he thinks there’s something between his teeth.

“Because there is always something strange going on with you and Yixing, so at this point, it’s not really… worth noting?”

“It’s definitely more strange than usual,” Wu Fan mumbles, and Zitao tilts his head to the side.

“How so?” He asks, and then he pouts as he gets a little ice cream on his black tank top.

“He’s not being more… um… touchy, in your opinion?” Wu Fan says the word ‘touchy’ hesitantly, because he’s not sure it’s the right word, but when he says it, Zitao’s head flies up and there’s suddenly interest in his eyes. “Touchier? With me? Lots of touching. ”

“Ah,” Zitao says, and he smiles at Wu Fan. “That.”

“So you have noticed.” Zitao is just staring at him, taking occasional bites of his ice cream. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Wu Fan’s hands fly up to check his hair, making sure it’s in place. “Is my hair is okay?”

“Your hair is fine, leader,” Zitao says. “Stop worrying; you might get a zit.”

“Oh my god,” Wu Fan says, and he almost reaches up to inspect his face before he notices Zitao is laughing at him. “Did Jongdae put you up to that?”

“Chanyeol-hyung,” Zitao says, ‘hyung’ rolling heavy and awkward off his tongue, and then he rests his chin on his left hand, right hand still holding his ice cream cone. “Anyway, we’re all touchy. Being touchy is part of being an idol, right? Even if management is always yelling at me about all the hugs.”

“I mean off-camera.” Wu Fan sighs, because it’s hard to explain the difference between the light, friendly touches he exchanges with his band mates every day, and the lingering ones that leave Wu Fan’s skin burning long after Yixing’s withdrawn his hand.

“Why don’t you just ask him?” Zitao shoves the rest of the cone into his face, as if to say enough is enough, and Wu Fan sighs, stands up, and throws the rest of his ice cream into the trash. “He’s, like, your best friend. Sort of. In a way.”

“Because I wanted a straight answer,” Wu Fan says, pursing his lips together and giving Zitao his ‘I expected better of you’ face but Zitao just laughs at him, and Wu Fan wonders when he stopped being in charge.

“Is that why you bought me ice cream?” Zitao smiles wide. “Because better luck next time,” he says, and pats Kris on the arm. “Thank you, though.”

“For the ice cream?”

“No,” Zitao says. “For acting like you’re in high school. It’s that ‘stumbling through adolescence’ experience I never got to have as a trainee.”

Wu Fan looks at Zitao, who is smiling at him in a way that reminds him far too much of Chanyeol, (even if Zitao is way cuter than Chanyeol, who looks like he’s straight out of Lord of the Rings when he smiles like that), and wonders why his life is so hard. “You’re spending too much time with the others. They’re ruining you.”

Zitao shrugs. “You’re still my favorite older brother.”

At least, Wu Fan thinks, as the rest of his world turns upside down, he still has that. He ruffles Zitao’s hair, and sighs.


#


Yixing is anything but quiet. When EXO debuts, fans who didn’t follow him back when he was a child star don’t know that Yixing spends most of his time alternating between histrionics and being boisterously deviant in the dorms, plotting pranks with Lu Han and finding ways to entertain them all even when they’re too exhausted to move, muscles cramping from overuse and stomachs rumbling from missed meals. Baekhyun and Chanyeol help, and between the three of them everyone is always laughing.

It’s not just that Yixing is loud; it’s also that he’s always got something to say, as well. He’s always getting in the last word, and while it drives Wu Fan crazy, it also makes him relax. Yixing talks strangely, with that Xiang Chinese mixed with his Mandarin marking him as a Hunan native, and it makes Wu Fan have to hang on Yixing’s every word to follow him when he starts speaking quickly.

Still, Wu Fan pretends, mostly, that he isn’t caught up in Yixing’s web, because Yixing is worse when he knows he has an audience.

Maybe being a child star makes you spoiled for attention, Wu Fan thinks. He was a star basketball player, for his middle school team, and those cheers had been addictive. So had the congratulatory backslaps in the hall when he wasn’t even thinking about the next game yet. But Wu Fan has never needed attention like Yixing, who seems to thrive on it, comebacks getting quicker and wittier the longer you talk with him.

Yixing also seems to get a kick out of disobeying Wu Fan just enough that Wu Fan notices, but not enough that it completely disrupts practice. Sometimes it’s moving a couple of beats too slow, and sometimes it’s interpreting his instructions in a way totally different than how Wu Fan had intended them, even though he knows what Wu Fan meant. Sometimes it’s saying things on television that make Wu Fan want to strangle him, and sometimes it’s saying nothing at all, creating awkward pauses that Wu Fan, as leader, has to try and fill.

“He never listens,” Wu Fan complains to Minseok, when they’re sitting side by side in the living room, Wu Fan’s Korean book open in front of him as Minseok traces characters into a workbook. “It’s like he’s…” Wu Fan searches around in his mind for the Korean words, but ends up settling for the Mandarin ones when they don’t come. “Trying to piss me off.”

“Hmm,” Minseok says, biting down on his lower lip and not looking up from his book. His cheeks are puffed out in concentration. “I don’t think that’s it.”

“What else could it be?”

“You’ve gotten awfully good at complaining in Korean,” Minseok says, and Wu Fan rubs his face with his hands.

“I’m constantly dealing with children,” Wu Fan says, and Minseok laughs. “I had to learn the complaining words first so Junmyeon and I could commiserate.”

“I think it’s more that he wants to make sure you’re paying attention,” Minseok says, after he’s set his pencil down and turned to look at Wu Fan.

“Of course I’m paying attention,” Wu Fan says. “I pay attention to all of you. It’s my job.”

“You’re a good leader,” Minseok says. “But that’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean, then?” Wu Fan wonders if he’s missing a layer to the conversation that he would be getting if his Korean were more fluent.

“If you have to ask that,” Minseok replies, “then you aren’t paying enough attention.”

Wu Fan ends up musing on that thought far more than on the formal conjugations of irregular adjectives, and he keeps seeing Yixing’s tiny, defiant smile instead of Korean letters in front of him.

“You can’t just say things like that,” Wu Fan hisses at Yixing, the day after they wrap up a brief editorial interview, and Wu Fan has finally had time to carefully plot out what he wants to say. Having conversations with Yixing can sometimes be like playing chess against a chess master when you’ve just learned the game’s rules. He’s learned to come prepared.

Yixing looks at Wu Fan with calculated puzzlement, and Wu Fan, as usual, has no idea what he’s up to. “Why not?” Yixing says. “You told me not to be ‘too much’, so I stayed quiet. Then I wasn’t talking enough during interviews.” They’re taking a short break from rehearsing, and Yixing’s skin is shining with a thin gloss of sweat, his loose shirt clinging to his chest, and Wu Fan loses track of his thoughts for a moment before he shakes himself free. “Make up your mind, leader.” Yixing’s got his eyes half-lidded in pleasure, because he loves doing this to Wu Fan.

“You were staring out into space like you were brain-dead,” Wu Fan says, narrowing his eyes. “People would ask you questions and you’d look back at them slack-jawed like a zombie.”

“I’m shy,” Yixing deadpans, and Wu Fan rolls his eyes.

“Yes, and I’m short,” Wu Fan says, glaring down at Yixing.

“I bet Yao Ming thinks you’re short,” Yixing replies after a measure, the same way he’d replied to the host, earlier, when asked to reveal something embarrassing about his leader. “It’s all a matter of perspective.”

“And from whose perspective are you shy?” Wu Fan asks, and Yixing smirks at him. “Not mine.”

“I’m sure there’s someone out there,” he says easily, and it’s so glib that it surprises a laugh out of Wu Fan. Yixing seems just as surprised by the laugh as he is, looking up at Wu Fan with wide eyes.

“What?” Wu Fan asks, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “You’re staring at me. With the zombie interview face.”

“It’s just,” Yixing says, as he jams both his hands in his sweatpants pockets and looks more uncomfortable than Wu Fan’s ever noticed him being, “I haven’t seen you smile at me like that in a long time.”

“Oh,” Wu Fan says, and he likes the way Yixing looks right now, lips parted and expression completely transparent. He raises his left arm, letting his large hand come to rest on the nape of Yixing’s neck. His thumb toys with the little curls there, where his hair has been recently shorn and permed, and it’s like silk under his touch. Wu Fan sort of wants to tell Yixing that he smiles at him like this all the time, but he’s afraid to do it when Yixing is looking. “This is just how I smile,” he says instead, and Yixing’s skin is so warm beneath his palm.

“I’ve always liked it when you smile like that,” Yixing says, quietly, and he isn’t smirking. He’s looking at Wu Fan like he’s seen a ghost, and then he’s flushing and his eyes are darting in every direction but Wu Fan’s, and Wu Fan doesn’t get it. “Shouldn’t we start practicing again?” There’s no lilt in it.

“Right,” Wu Fan says, walking away from Yixing to the center of the rehearsal room, where Minseok is stretching his arms above his head. Then Wu Fan’s clapping his hands, and everyone groans, Jongdae pouring a bottle of water over himself and letting it splash in his face.

“I think you’ve tamed him,” Minseok says, in simple Korean, and Wu Fan looks at him curiously.

“Tamed?” he replies, in Mandarin, and Minseok wrinkles his nose and smiles widely.

“Yes,” Minseok says. “Look-- he’s listening.”

He is, perfectly, and when their eyes meet, Yixing beams at him, and Wu Fan is… well, Wu Fan is paying attention.


#


Going to the airport is a nightmare. Not because Wu Fan doesn’t like flying, or because he always has to take off his shoes, or because going to the airport means getting on a plane for too many hours, but because of the fans.

Wu Fan loves having fans. It’s great that there are people who like him just for existing, basically, and all he has to do is frown at them to make them scream a little louder.

But sometimes, he really wishes they were slightly less enthusiastic, and tried slightly less hard to take pieces of him and his band mates home. He usually goes temporarily blind from all the flashes of cameras and cell phones, and he’s always pulling one of his band mates in closer to him, because he wants to protect them all even if he knows he really isn’t a match for a few hundred Chinese girls because en masse they’re so much stronger than he is.

Going to the airport is even worse, it turns out, when Yixing takes every possible chance to touch him; especially when Wu Fan is already stretched so thin. Every time Yixing’s elbow brushes his, or they’re pushed together, thigh to thigh, Wu Fan’s breath gets stuck in his lungs, and he’s hard pressed to remember a time when they touched and it didn’t make him want to crawl out of his own skin.

“We made it,” Yixing says, as he takes off his wristwatch and puts it into the plastic bin with his sandals for screening. Wu Fan doesn’t have much of his own stuff, so he shoves his backpack on the conveyor belt and then drops his sneakers and EXO ring next to Yixing’s watch.

“Alive, even,” Wu Fan replies, and walks ahead, putting his hands on Zitao’s shoulders until Zitao walks through the metal detector.

“How does he not go off like a ambulance siren with all those piercings,” Jongdae murmurs, and Minseok murmurs something back that Wu Fan doesn’t hear because the security guy is waving him through. Yixing is right behind him, and Wu Fan picks up his backpack and puts it on, before grabbing their plastic bin and taking it off the belt and over to the side, out of the way. Yixing reaches into the bucket and grabs Wu Fan’s ring.

“You always have it,” Yixing says, and Wu Fan nods, holding out his palm so Yixing can hand it to him. But Yixing grabs his hand and pulls it closer. He slides the ring on to Wu Fan’s middle digit, and Wu Fan thinks he’ll let go but he doesn’t. “You have big hands.”

“Your hands are just small,” Wu Fan replies, as Yixing presses his palm flat against Wu Fan’s. Wu Fan can bend his fingertips down over Yixing’s. It’s comfortable.

“Let’s go,” their manager calls, and Yixing drops his hand, reaching into the bin and grabbing his watch, and his sandals, as Wu Fan struggles with his sneakers.

“You always wear difficult shoes to the airport,” Yixing says, when Wu Fan straightens. “Wear shoes that slip on and off easier.”

Wu Fan can usually tie his shoes pretty quickly, but his hand still tingles from where Yixing had pressed their hands together.

“Shut up,” Wu Fan says, and maybe it’s that Wu Fan didn’t sleep enough last night, or that Yixing just looks so pleased with himself, but he doesn’t stop himself from reaching out and reclaiming Yixing’s hand, for a brief moment, and squeezing it. It’s an indulgence, he knows, but maybe if he gives in, on these little things, it’ll be easier to push the bigger, scarier things away.

Yixing jumps, startled, when Wu Fan grabs it, but he laces their fingers together after a moment, and Wu Fan holds hands with people all the time but it doesn’t usually make his heart beat so fast.

And then Yixing is pulling away, walking faster so he can walk between Minseok and Zitao, leaving Wu Fan’s side for the first time all day, and Lu Han walks up beside him.

“The plot thickens,” Lu Han says, and Wu Fan coughs into his hand.

“I think Yixing is up to something,” Wu Fan says, and Lu Han laughs.

“Isn’t he always?” Lu Han says, and Wu Fan grabs Lu Han’s hand. There’s nothing. Wu Fan doesn’t feel strange at all. He drops it again, and scowls. “Anyway, it seemed to me like you were up to something just now.”

“Just testing,” Wu Fan says, scowl deepening.

“The findings?” Lu Han asks, as Jongdae comes up on Wu Fan’s other side, wearing sunglasses and a t-shirt that’s too big for him.

“Not sure yet. Further experimentation required,” Wu Fan says, and Lu Han’s got his eyebrows lifted like he always does when he’s listening carefully.

“Leader, what’s with that face?” Jongdae punches him in the arm, and even though Wu Fan growls at him, he’s thankful for the interruption. “It’s like you just remembered what you looked like in middle school.”

“Am I ever going to live those photos down?”

“Never,” Jongdae says. “Not if I have anything to say about it.” He punches Wu Fan again, smiling brightly. “Cheer up, duizhang!”

Wu Fan ducks to go into the plane, and the aisles are narrow. He sees Yixing settling into a window seat on the left, and four rows in front of him, there’s Zitao in the middle of the center set of seats. Wu Fan pulls his ticket out of his passport to check his seat, and Lu Han snags it from his grip, studying Wu Fan’s and his own, before switching them. Wu Fan looks at the new ticket in his hand, and then to the empty seat next to Yixing, and looks back accusingly at Lu Han.

“Good luck with your experiment,” Lu Han says with a peaceful smile, and Wu Fan can see the evil lurking in his eyes.

“Thanks,” he says dryly, and continues down the aisle as Lu Han settles in next to Tao. He takes his backpack off and puts it into the overhead compartment, before throwing himself down in the seat next to Yixing.

Yixing folds toward him as soon as he sits down. “I thought Lu Han was sitting next to me.”

“Disappointed?” Wu Fan can smell Yixing’s shampoo as Yixing sets his chin on Wu Fan’s shoulder.

“No,” he says, and his breath is warm, scented like the chocolate and coffee he couldn’t resist earlier, across Wu Fan’s bare neck, and Wu Fan’s own breath hitches.

When Yixing sleeps, Wu Fan studies the slope of his nose, and the way Yixing’s hand looks so natural resting on his denim-clad thigh, and the way his arm fits so easily over the slimmer slope of Yixing’s shoulders.

Wu Fan blinks, and licks his lips, and then he rests his hand on top of Yixing’s. His fingers trace along Yixing’s watch, scratching the skin lightly with his nails, and Wu Fan can feel the beat of his heart against his own ribs as loud as any drum. Yixing shifts, and Wu Fan pulls his hand back, but his heart rate doesn’t slow and the butterflies in his stomach seem to multiply.

He doesn’t get any sleep on the plane, and he wonders if Yixing can hear his anxiousness even in slumber.

“And the results?” Lu Han asks him, as they pile into the van, closing the door on the girls who scream their names at the top of their lungs.

“I don’t know,” Wu Fan says, and he needs water, or something, because his voice comes out gravelly. “I don’t really trust my findings.” Lu Han makes a sound of amusement and sits next to Minseok in the van.

“Guess you’ll have to keep testing,” Lu Han says, and Wu Fan pretends he can’t hear the delight lacing through his words.

“Testing what?” Yixing asks, and he squeezes between Wu Fan and Jongdae. His hair is ruffled and sticks up a little in the back, and Wu Fan wants to smooth it, but that would be out of character, so he just presses his lips together and digs his hands into the fabric of his jeans.

“Nothing,” Wu Fan says, and he peels one of his hands free to check his own hair, combing his fingers through his bangs, just for something to do.

“You look tired, Yixing,” Jongdae says, and Yixing sucks his lower lip into his mouth.

“Didn’t get any sleep on the plane,” he says, staring fixedly ahead, and Wu Fan’s stomach flops.

“Too bad,” Jongdae says. “Although I guess Wu Fan’s troll face would keep me from sleeping, too-“ Wu Fan kicks the back of his seat, and Jongdae whines even though it doesn’t hurt.

As the van leaves Incheon and heads towards Seoul, passing over the water, Wu Fan watches out the window and tries to make sense of his thoughts.

Yixing leans against him, and he freezes. “Leader, you make a good pillow.”

“Really?” Wu Fan says, and he looks down when he feels the scrape of nails along the skin of his wrist. He raises his eyes to meet Yixing’s and Yixing is looking back at him, small smile hovering at the edge of his lips as usual, and Wu Fan has never wished he could read Yixing’s mind more.

“Yes,” Yixing says. “And your hair looks fine.”

“Yours doesn’t,” Wu Fan says, and he reaches across himself, and smoothes down the hair that’s sticking up in the back.

He drops his hand and shifts his upper body back toward the window, and Lu Han is watching, biting down lightly on his lower lip, and Wu Fan feels like he’s been caught.

As leader, he shouldn’t be so lost, he thinks. As leader, he has a responsibility to be way cooler than this.

The other half of their band is waiting for them at the dorms with food and tons of stories, and Wu Fan is never more grateful to be dragged off to play video games with Chanyeol than he is now; even though Wu Fan is crap at video games, it’s easier than trying to avoid both Lu Han and Yixing’s eyes.

They don’t play video games though. Chanyeol hooks his good speakers up to his laptop and Wu Fan sits on the floor, stretching his long legs out in front of him and grimacing because like this, his pants look too short.

“Tell me what you think,” Chanyeol says, putting on an album and playing it at full volume like there’s no one else home. Chanyeol does everything like that—like he has no concept of how much noise he makes going through his everyday life. Wu Fan likes drowning in the music, though, and he lets the almost too-heavy bass rumble in his bones and finally, finally the stress starts to work it’s way out of him.

“It’s not bad,” Wu Fan says, and Chanyeol, who is bobbing his head to the beat, pulls down the hood of his sweatshirt and spins around in his desk chair so he’s facing Wu Fan.

“You look less like you’re going to have a nervous breakdown now, at least,” Chanyeol says, and Wu Fan raises one eyebrow.

“I looked like I was going to have a nervous breakdown?”

“Well, no, you looked mildly annoyed, and kind of like you had a stick up your butt, as usual, but your nails were digging so deep into your palms I was afraid your hands were going to start bleeding.” Wu Fan opens his hands, and sure enough, there are crescents in the flesh, still visible even after a few minutes.

“You’re one to talk about someone’s face,” Wu Fan says, softer than he usually would, to imply his thanks. “You look like you’ve already had the nervous breakdown. Or like you have rabies.”

“You’re just jealous because I’m approachable,” Chanyeol says. “People think you’re plotting the murder of their first-born. That’s why the producers won’t look at you, if you were wondering.”

“They don’t look at me because I’m too devastatingly attractive,” Wu Fan says, jokingly, leaning back on his elbows.

“Must be the extensive skin care regiment,” Chanyeol says, and Wu Fan gives him the finger. “Look at duizhang Wu Fan, he’s as pretty as a geisha-“

Wu Fan reaches a long arm toward the bed and grabs one of Chanyeol’s forty pillows and throws it at him. It hits him square in the face, and he squeals.

“Kris,” he says, like they’re on stage, and Wu Fan laughs, and yeah, for a few hours, he’ll forget about Yixing and all the things he knows better than to feel.

He needs to stay away. Create distance. He just doesn’t know how.


#


The first time the feelings, the ones he refuses to give a name to, well up too much for him to hold them back, it’s right after the showcase in China.

Wu Fan is feeling hot, and adrenaline is still pumping in his veins, and he’s got too much energy. He needs to go outside, because maybe the cool April air will calm him down. It’s like all the pressure that has been weighing him down since their April eighth debut, or really, since he’d found out he’d be leader of M, in steadily increasing increments, is finally lifting, and Wu Fan feels so light he might fly away. Fitting.

He makes his way up to the roof, but there’s someone else there. He squints, and it’s Yixing, his guitar on his lap, singing softly up towards the stars.

He’s still wearing his stage jacket, and his hair is a mess, and Wu Fan can see the exhaustion in the line of his shoulders.

“You needed to come outside, too?”

“Fresh air,” Yixing says. “No people.” He looks down at his guitar and pats it. “I started doing this when I was a kid. After I appeared on the idol-search show, I’d even get followed around at school. So when it gets to be more than I can take, I find a place to be alone.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” Yixing says. “If it’s you, it’s okay.” And then he smiles. Wu Fan is still, even though it’s been months, getting used to the shortness of Yixing’s hair, and the way it waves across his forehead.

“Why?” Wu Fan asks, and he sits down on the dirty roof in his expensive dry-clean only pants, and their knees touch.

“Because,” Yixing says, “even after four years, you still like me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Wu Fan asks, eyes watching the slow rise and fall of Yixing’s shoulders, steady as the ocean waves.

“Remember the first morning in the dorms?” Yixing says, and there’s no hint of teasing in his tone. “I told you I was going to be horrible.”

“You did. I’m a little disappointed. Is that all you’ve got?” Wu Fan says lightly, and he scoots a little closer, because something about Yixing, in the moonlight, is magnetic. “Because I’ve learned how to wake up early.”

“Maybe I’ve learned to sleep a little later, too,” Yixing says, and he looks up at the sky again, and he’s sweaty and his make-up is smudged, but Wu Fan thinks he looks amazing, and he remembers that first morning together perfectly, legs touching underneath the kitchen table, and something swells in his chest, too big to push down.

The quiet, there on the roof, just the two of them; it’s one of the rare glimpses of the real Yixing, who isn’t playing games, and isn’t trying to needle Wu Fan just to see how he’ll react, and it’s enough to make Wu Fan start to fall.

“I could tell you anything, right now,” Wu Fan says, and Yixing smiles, wide and clear and free of pretense.

“Then go ahead,” he says.


#


“Hello?” Jongin says, waving his arms in front of Wu Fan’s face. “Anyone home?”

“No,” Wu Fan grumbles. “Try again later.” Jongin’s tank top is sliding off of one tanned shoulder, and Wu Fan thinks he looks like a kid in his big brother’s clothes. “Is that Chanyeol’s shirt?”

“Maybe.” He pulls up the shoulder. “You’ve been acting lame,” Jongin says. “Lamer than usual.” Jongin sucks his lower lip into his mouth and peers up at Wu Fan through his fringe. “Dragons are supposed to be all ‘rawr’, but you’re all ‘meow’. Complete waste of your magic, to be quite honest.”

He’s got a cheeky quirk to his brow, and Wu Fan knows Jongin’s just trying to bait him, but he refuses to rise to it. Yixing has given him plenty of practice at overlooking needling, and though Yixing is an expert at getting under Wu Fan’s skin, Jongin isn’t nearly as able.

“Why don’t you teleport away from me, then,” Wu Fan says, and Jongin puts his hands on his hips. “I’m too tired to play today.”

“Look,” Jongin says. “You don’t have to be a grump just because we didn’t have your favorite kind of cereal-“

“I don’t even like cereal,” Wu Fan says, leaning back on the sofa and staring up at the ceiling. “How am I supposed to have a favorite kind-“

“Or because Chanyeol-hyung isn’t home, because he and Junmyeon-hyung are at rehearsal for that special MNET thingy-“

“Our jobs are more important than anything, and I’m glad to see Chanyeol being so diligent-“

“Or because you got into a fight with your unicorn girlfriend and he’s spending all of his time with Baekhyun-hyung-“

“Shut up,” Wu fan says, and he closes his eyes and ignores the way his stomach is unsettled.

“Oh, there it is! Nail on the head.” He leans closer and stage whispers. “Are you guys having a fight? You’ve been avoiding him and he keeps looking at you across the table at mealtimes like you lost your half of you guys’ super special friends-forever necklaces and he’s all betrayed, or something.”

“No,” Wu Fan says bluntly, and Jongin exhales. “We aren’t fighting. Nothing is wrong.” Wu Fan coughs. “And we don’t have ‘friendship necklaces’, you little-“

“Nothing?” Jongin says. “I don’t know what you’ve been reading in the ‘how to be too stoic to show emotions unless surprised into them’ handbook, but fidgeting whenever you catch someone’s gaze is not really one of the commandments, I’m sure.”

“I do not fidget!” Wu Fan links his fingers together and sighs. His bangs fall into his face. The ends are frizzy; too damaged from the bleach. “It’s nothing. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Our band is harmonious, and there are no unnecessary complications.”

“Then stop wallowing,” Jongin says. “And go talk to him, or something. You’re avoiding him like he’s got swine flu, honestly.”

Kyungsoo sits quietly next to him on the couch after Jongin flounces off, and pats him gently on the knee. “Being leader doesn’t mean you’re not supposed to have feelings, right?” Kyungsoo says, offering him shrimp crackers. “It just means you need to take care of your team.”

“My feelings get in the way of taking care of my team, I think,” Wu Fan says, and he feels guilty even admitting there are feelings, let alone what they are.

“I’m not a leader,” Kyungsoo says, slowly, like he says everything, and Wu Fan knows he’s the sort to think about the weight of every word before he lets it pass his lips, “but I’m good at taking care of people.” He pauses, and Wu Fan straightens the collar of his button up, making sure there are no unnecessary creases. All part of the routine. “One thing I’ve learned is that you can’t take care of every person in the same way. Not everyone is going to need, or want, the same things from you.”

Wu Fan opens his eyes, and takes a shrimp cracker from the crinkling aluminum bag. It’s salty. It tastes like they used to taste when he was twelve, and he didn’t have any of these sorts of problems. He looks up at Kyungsoo, who smiles at him, and gulps.

“And you can’t take care of people if you can’t take care of yourself, either,” Kyungsoo says. “What do you want, Wu Fan? What do you need?”

Wu Fan thinks the answer might be Yixing, but he never knows what Yixing wants.

“It’s a lot of pressure,” Wu Fan says. “And I can’t be selfish.” Kyungsoo nods, like he understands, and he sets the crackers down between them.

“Well, you’ll figure it out,” Kyungsoo says. “In fairytales, dragons are pretty wise.”

“I’m not a dragon,” Wu Fan says. “I’m a twenty-two year old guy with social anxiety and really great skin.” It comes out as a whine, and Wu Fan’s glad Chanyeol isn’t around to hear it.

Kyungsoo chuckles. “Right, right. Still, I’ve got faith in you.”

“I appreciate that,” Wu Fan says, and Kyungsoo stands. “Don’t forget your crackers.”

“I don’t eat those,” Kyungsoo says. “You just looked like you needed them.”

When Kyungsoo retreats to his room, Wu Fan takes a big handful of crackers and shoves them into his mouth, and wishes this were all simpler.


#


Disney is fun. Yixing is hyper; almost as hyper as Chanyeol, who drags him all over the place as Zitao follows, and Wu Fan tries his best not to laugh as Yixing and Jongdae play silly animal ear trading games with their headbands, acquiring new sets throughout the day and passing them back and forth.

“What do you think, leader? Can I talk you into a pair?” Yixing says, and Wu Fan laughs, and declines. “Are you too cool for Mickey ears?”

“No,” Wu Fan says. “But definitely too cool for platypus ears.”

No one else seems too cool for anything though, and Lu Han bursts out crying when he sees Donald Duck, and Wu Fan sort of feels like a chaperone until he finally relaxes into the atmosphere and lets himself relax. He watches Yixing try to manage a whole conversation in Korean with Baekhyun, and it’s… Yixing is so animated, hands moving exaggeratedly, and Wu Fan feels content just watching him.

“You’re hopeless,” Chanyeol says, and Wu Fan spins his head sharply. “Stop scowling at the water rides and get on one.” Wu Fan sighs with relief, and follows, letting Yixing out of his sight because he knows he’s being too obvious.

But when Yixing offers his jacket to one of the women accompanying them, and she refuses, Yixing starts to take it back, and Wu Fan grabs it, wrapping it around his own shoulders.

“Cold?” Yixing asks, leaning closer. His hair is wet, and stuck to his forehead. The parts that are starting to dry are fluffing up into an awful frizz. He’s wearing Mickey Mouse ears. Despite all that, Wu Fan still wants to kiss him.

Instead, he presses his nose into Yixing’s jacket, and pretends it’s enough. “Not really.”

“Then why’d you take my jacket?” Yixing’s got his fingers against Wu Fan’s back now, dancing along his spine.

“Smells like you,” Wu Fan says, and the fingers slow, like they’re thinking. “Eucalyptus. Like your shampoo.”

“Oh,” Yixing says, and when Wu Fan sneaks a glance, Yixing’s dimples are pronounced, and there’s a pink flush to his cheeks. “Okay.”

And this is the happiest place on earth but Wu Fan wants something he probably can’t have, and he has no idea what Yixing wants, because no one ever does.


#


Wu Fan has a complicated beauty routine because it’s something he can control. The others make fun of him for it, but his life, since he’d signed with SM, had become chaotic and weird and completely out of his own hands, and so it helps to have something that he can be totally in charge of.

Wu Fan can step by step clean and tone his face, and apply his lotions, in the exact order he likes, and no one interferes or changes anything last minute.

At times like this, when Wu Fan can’t even control his own heart, it’s nice to have one thing that’s consistent.



PART THREE