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maayacolabackupTitle: Universal Languages
Pairing: Jongdae/Tao [TAOCHEN]
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jongdae goes to China to learn about wushu, and ends up learning about himself, instead. (AU, 32k)
Warnings: This is so fluffy it may kill you. Also the particular tournament that occurs in this story is a real tournament, but this is not when it’s run, and not how it’s run.
Notes: My TaoChen feelings cannot be controlled. This is probably due to Sarah who ruins my life with her Titanic ships on a regular basis. Thanks to beta-ssi, and the tiny-wives for their ‘encouragement’/schadenfreude, and no thanks at all to Sarah, because I really did not have time to write this.
Lee Soo Man looks at Jongdae from the other side of his impressive oak desk, and steeples his fingers. “You might be wondering why I called.”
Jongdae presses harder into the expensive leather chair, trying to get as far away from his boss as he can without actually utilizing the wheels on his chair to roll backwards. “Yes, sir,” Jongdae says. “It’s just, I’m relatively new, sir, so I-“
“Relatively new, indeed,” Lee Soo Man says, his wrinkled face looking stern and unflappable across the table. Jongdae can feel himself breaking into a cold sweat. Everyone in the office is afraid of Lee Soo Man. Jongdae’s only met him once before. That had been his first day of work, over a year ago, and so Jongdae had been surprised when he’d seen the carefully typed out note, sitting ominously on his desk, that ordered him to report to the top floor as soon as he arrived. “And as with all new employees, I’m going to give you a test.”
“A test, sir?” Jongdae asks, and he discreetly tries to peel his fingers up from the chair where he’s curled them in so tight he’s afraid he might have damaged the leather. “I’m not… fired, sir?”
“Why would I fire you?” Lee Soo Man asks, before he leans across his desk, eyebrows furrowing. “Have you done something I’d have to fire you for?”
The urgent, inquisitive tone strikes terror into Jongdae’s heart, the same way everything Lee Soo Man does strikes terror into everyone’s heart, and Jongdae licks his lips while shaking his head profusely in the negative. “No, sir, of course not, sir. It’s just that I’m a new employee, and you’re the boss, and-“
“Do you think I ever personally fire anyone, Mr. Kim?” Lee Soo Man laughs, relaxing back into his own chair, that looks a bit more like a throne than an office seat, and Jongdae weakly chuckles along with him because he thinks he’s supposed to. “Of course I don’t. I have people I pay to do that for me.” He shuffles a few papers on his desk while Jongdae squirms. “Anyway, I’m giving you an assignment.”
“What… kind of assignment?” Jongdae scratches at his face, careful not to accidentally gauge his face in anxiousness, and tries not to frown. “I mean, I do assignments every day.”
Every day at six in the morning, when Jongdae comes in to work at SM Geographic’s Seoul headquarters, Yunho hands him a giant folder full of detailed phone calls that have to be made, in order to fact-check for articles that will be printed in next month’s magazine.
He usually manages to get through a third of that folder by lunch, around which time Junmyeon, Jongdae’s friend from uni who’d helped him get this job, usually manages to trick him into going out to eat, leaving his carefully packed lunch sitting at the corner of his desk. By the time Jongdae gets back, there’s always a new folder sitting on top of Yunho’s folder, with a post-it note from Shim Changmin that says SLACKER, or something else equally juvenile, in taunting bubble-letters stuck on top. Then Sehun, without fail, drops someone’s coffee, and Jongdae helps clean it up, and then, for the rest of the day, Jongdae’s hands smell like hazelnut cream.
It’s not exactly what he’d always imagined doing, when he’d been studying in university to be a travel journalist, but Jongdae knows there are ladders in every industry and this is the bottom rung of his.
Jongdae’s gotten used to life being a little anti-climatic, anyway. Contentment is more than most hope for, and he’s definitely content. It’s good enough.
“Those are not assignments,” Lee Soo Man says, with a wave of his hand. “That’s drudgery.” Jongdae gulps. “We all have to do it. You’ve done it well, without complaint. Not even Changmin hates you, and he hates everyone.” Jongdae feels like the chair he’s sitting in is so soft he’s slowly sinking into it.
“Ahh, thank you, sir?” Jongdae is pretty sure it’s a compliment.
“Yes,” Lee Soo Man says. “Anyway.” He pauses, and pushes his glasses up on his nose. “An assignment.” Jongdae looks down as his simple black trousers, and brushes off a bit of imaginary lint as he waits. “As you know, this is one of the world’s premiere photojournalism and essay magazines.”
Of course Jongdae knows that. He nervously runs his thumb across his eyebrow, smoothing the hair.
Jongdae looks up to meet his boss’s stare. “Yes, sir. It’s why I wanted to work here, sir.”
“How… earnest.” Lee Soo Man taps his chin. “You’ve been here for a year now, Mr. Kim. I think it’s about time you went and wrote some essays. Don’t you?”
Jongdae’s pulse quickens with excitement and fear. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up. “Me, sir?”
“Yes, you,” Lee Soo Man says. “I do this with all my new, promising employees. I’m giving you a chance to prove you can do the real job.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jongdae says. He’s not sure what makes him ‘promising’. He licks his lips again, standing up from his chair to bow repeatedly. “I appreciate the opportunity, sir.” His dress-shirt is sticking to his back with sweat, probably from a combination of sweat and the leather chair swallowing him whole.
“Don’t you want to know where I’m sending you?” Lee Soo Man asks, an amused glint in his beady eyes. “Or are you just going to hop on a plane with no destination?”
“Oh,” Jongdae says, feeling a blush suffuse his face. “Right.” He stops bowing, and he feels a little bit dizzy, like all the blood in his body is rushing to his head.
“I’m sending you to Hunan, China for a year,” Le Soo Man says, and Jongdae freezes.
“A year?” Jongdae squeaks, and then he slowly straightens. Now Lee Soo Man is definitely amused, a sadistic twist to his lips revealing his enjoyment of Jongdae’s shock.
“Yes,” Lee Soo Man says. “You’re going to live in a renovated temple. Learn about the lives of martial artists who follow more traditional paths of study. Discover the Chinese countryside. Write me things. Interesting things.”
Jongdae’s stomach does flips; horrible ones that make him feel like he’s on a boat during a rainstorm. “I don’t speak Chinese,” Jongdae blurts out, and then feels himself blushing, profusely, as he realizes that sounds like a complaint. “Not that I won’t do it, sir, I’m just surprised that-“
“Good, it’s all settled, then.” Lee Soo Man laces his fingers together. “I’ll give you more information about your assignment through my secretary, Kibeom. You’ll be leaving in two weeks.”
“Is that… Is that all, sir?” Jongdae needs time to process all of this. He needs time to figure out what he’s going to do with his apartment. What he’s going to tell his mom.
He can imagine how that conversation is going to go. ’Hi mom, I’m moving to China for a year. Yeah, mom, in two weeks.’ She’s going to kill him.
“Yes,” Lee Soo Man says. “I’m sure Yunho’s got a massive folder of facts you need to check.”
Jongdae is sure he does, too. “Yes, sir.” Jongdae walks toward the door. His knees are shaking a little, because this all seems very unreal.
“Have a nice day,” Lee Soo Man says, and the cheerful lilt in his voice sends a shiver down Jongdae’s spine as the thick oak door closes behind him.
*
“Wow,” Junmyeon says. “China.” Junmyeon has the same easy, genial expression on his face as the one Jongdae remembers from when they’d first met, like Jongdae hasn’t just dropped a massive bomb on him. Junmyeon has a habit of looking unflappable, even though Jongdae, and everyone else who knows him well, is very aware that Junmyeon is anything but.
“But I don’t speak any Chinese!” Jongdae wails, smushing his face into his hands as Jongin snickers. “Do you not understand that this is a big deal?”
“No one speaks Chinese,” Kyungsoo says, in a way Jongdae thinks is supposed to sound encouraging. “Chinese is not a language. What you don’t speak is Mandarin.”
“Gee, thanks,” Jongdae says, and Jongin leans across the table to flick Jongdae in the forehead. “I feel so much better about going to a country where I don’t speak the language, now that I know that language is called Mandarin.”
“Don’t whine,” Jongin says. “This sounds totally awesome, to me. Maybe that’s because, hello, you finally get to do your real job.”
“And I’m excited about that!” Jongdae says. He takes a large bite of his bibimbap, the rice and red pepper paste comforting on his tongue. “It’s going to be great, I’m sure. Except the part where I live in a former temple and can’t talk to anyone because I don’t speak Chi—“ Kyungsoo narrows those wide eyes at him, while Junmyeon snickers behind his hand. “Mandarin.”
Kyungsoo gives him a pleased smile, and Jongin shoves a massive bite of kimchi into his face. “Wish I could go,” Jongin says around the mouthful, splattering redish-orange juice onto Junmyeon’s arm, which results in Junmyeon punching him in the shoulder.
“Chew first, child,” Junmyeon says, and Jongin glares at him.
“Me too,” Sehun says, slipping his phone into his pocket and squishing in next to Jongin. “Anything to be done with making coffee for Changmin. And get away from mom and dad.” He points at Kyungsoo and Junmyeon, and Junmyeon sticks his tongue out at Sehun in revenge.
“Super mature,” Jongin says to Junmyeon. “Wow, you’re such a role-model.”
Kyungsoo ignores them all, and turns to Jongdae with an optimistic look on his face that Jongdae thinks makes him look sort of like his eyes are going to pop right out of his head. “Look,” Kyungsoo says. “Just think about it as an epic adventure. When else in your life are you going to be able to just drop everything and go live overseas for a year?”
“Never,” Jongdae admits, taking a sip of his cola to calm the heat on his tongue. He reaches for his chopsticks, and grabs a piece of tuna kimbap. He pushes it between his lips as he thinks.
“Exactly,” Kyungsoo says. “And we’ll all be here, waiting, when you get back-“
“Jongin won’t,” Junmyeon says, and Jongdae looks back over to see that Junmyeon’s got Jongin in a headlock, and Jongin’s still trying to eat as Junmyeon chokes him. “I’ll have killed him by then.” Sehun helpfully sticks a piece of radish into Jongin’s mouth.
“What did I do, in college?” Jongdae says, in a faux-sad tone. “Did I even go to college? Or did I meet all of you in a glorified kindergarten?” He sighs and rubs his nose. “Ugh.”
Kyungsoo pats his shoulder sympathetically. “Now, Jongdae, you know it’s unhealthy to take out your feelings of fear and displacement on other people.”
“My feelings of-“ Jongdae raises an eyebrow. “Have you been reading Baekhyun’s self-help books again?”
Kyungsoo stares at him with wide, unreadable eyes. “For your information,” Kyungsoo says, “as an busy engineer, the only literature I read in my free time is erotic.” Kyungsoo blinks, and Jongdae looks at him with a slow-building horror. “I… was just telling a joke, Jongdae.” He laughs, nervously, and Jongdae turns to look down at his bibimbap.
“Better luck next time, hyung,” Jongin says, tapping the back of Kyungsoo’s hand, before snagging the last bit of kimbap without remorse. “Maybe I should work harder to fix your social skills.” He spits bits of rice out as he speaks.
“Um,” Sehun says, and Jongin starts play-fighting with him.
“China’s not looking so bad right now,” Jongdae says wryly, mostly to himself, and Junmyeon laughs.
“I went on a two week trip to Turkey for my ‘test’,” Junmyeon says, making air-quotes. “Looks like the boss has high hopes for you.” Junmyeon smiles, and Jongdae’s belly flops around as he thinks, yet again, about an entire year away.
High hopes, Jongdae muses, make him worried.
“Stop looking like you’re being sent to prison instead of on an all-expenses-paid exotic retreat, please,” Jongin says, shaking his hair out of his face. “Like Kyungsoo-hyung said, it’s an adventure.”
“Why don’t you go on an adventure, then?” Jongdae leans back in his seat.
“Like what?” Jongin asks, tossing his hair.
“You could always go on a date with your stalker,” Junmyeon says. “What’s his name, again? Taemin?”
“Wow, you suck,” Jongin says. “No way would I ever.”
“Can I come with you?” Kyungsoo murmurs to Jongdae, smiling despite himself, and Jongdae takes a deep breath.
*
“Oh,” Jongdae says. “Hi!”
“Wow,” Chanyeol says. “That’s the resigned face Jongin makes when Taemin shows up to try and con him into a date again.”
“I’m sure it’s slightly more excited than that,” Jongdae replies. Baekhyun walks in behind Chanyeol, both of them shedding their shoes in the doorway and walking in like it’s their apartment, not Jongdae’s.
“I have a present for you!” Chanyeol says, producing a brown paper bag from ‘Kyobo Books’ from behind his back. “Because I am your very favorite friend from college.”
Jongdae looks at the bag suspiciously. “Is what’s inside going to get me arrested?”
Baekhyun giggles from behind them on the sofa, and Chanyeol pouts. “Would I do that?”
Jongdae opens his mouth to respond as Baekhyun’s giggles gain in volume.
“Err, would I do that again?” Chanyeol’s smile is wide and luminous, and it’s gotten Jongdae in trouble before. Still, Chanyeol means well, so Jongdae takes the bag. Inside is a thick, paperback book.
“What’s this?” The bag is actually super heavy, and Jongdae has to slide the handle up to his wrist to hang there so it doesn’t cut into his fingers.
“It’s clearly a book,” Chanyeol says, shaking his head to try and get his too-long bangs out of his eyes. Lately he’s been wearing them tied back into his ponytail, but the ponytail is nowhere to be seen, today, hiding Chanyeol’s ears from view. “Duh.”
Jongdae pulls it out. “’Mandarin for Beginners’?” Jongdae stares down at the tome in his hands, unblinking.
“You’re supposed to study what’s inside, not the cover,” Chanyeol says. Jongdae walks over to the sofa, where Baekhyun sits, plopping next to him. “You shouldn’t look that glazed over before you even open it. It’s from myself and Baekhyun, actually. It was his idea.”
Jongdae smiles at Baekhyun, then at Chanyeol. “Thanks, guys, this was really thoughtful.”
“We heard through the grapevine that you were panicking about the whole… language thing,” Baekhyun says. “So Chanyeol and I thought maybe this would be a start?” Baekhyun leans into Jongdae’s shoulder, long graceful fingers running along the Chinese characters on the cover.
“Yeah,” Chanyeol says. “Plus I asked the guy at the bookstore which one was the best choice for someone ‘completely incompetent and useless at learning’, and he said this one was so simple a ten year old could use it.” Chanyeol excitedly squeezes in next to Jongdae on the other side. “So you should be able to manage. Maybe.”
Jongdae has no doubt that Chanyeol said that exact thing to the bookstore employee, and Baekhyun’s quiet smile confirms it. “Thanks for the high expectations,” Jongdae says.
“Don’t think I don’t remember that time you tried to learn Japanese because you were obsessed with ninjas,” Chanyeol says. “You walked around calling everyone in our freshman year seminar Miyagi-san and you tried to teach yourself origami-“
“Shut up,” Jongdae says. “It was a phase.” He scratches carefully at his hair, which he’d gelled up carefully today to keep Chanyeol from touching it. “Not like you didn’t have… phases.”
Jongdae still has photographic evidence of the time Chanyeol had worn that yellow dress out clubbing and he will not hesitate to use it as leverage.
“For the last time, that was a bet, and really, it’s all Jongin’s fault, that little-“
Baekhyun clears his throat. “Well, you probably need to pack,” Baekhyun says. “We wouldn’t want to keep you from getting things done.”
“What can he have to pack to go live at a temple with a whole lot of people who are basically Jackie Chan?”
“Clothes,” Jongdae says. “Hygiene items. Band-aids.”
“Are you going to learn martial arts?” Baekhyun asks sweetly. “Because then you can learn how to kick Chanyeol’s butt.”
“Whose side are you on, anyway?” Chanyeol grumbles, and Jongdae feels like he’s trapped between Bert and Ernie on the couch. “Besides, you know Jongdae has zero muscle control.” Chanyeol snickers. “I’m sure we all remember the ‘Dancing Machine’ incident.”
“I blame everything, forever, on Jongin,” Jongdae says decisively, and then he and Chanyeol high-five in truce as Baekhyun shakes his head in mock dismay, but Jongdae knows he isn’t upset because he can see that ever-present smile lurking in the set of his mouth.
“We really should go, though,” Baekhyun says reluctantly. “Our other two roommates are going to be home soon, and I don’t trust them.”
“I wouldn’t trust Jongin, either, but Sehun can take care of himself.”
“But can he take care of them both?” Baekhyun muses, and Jongdae snickers.
Chanyeol huffs, stretching his long legs out in front of him like a toddler, before he stands. He offers Baekhyun a hand up, tugging gently, and Baekhyun follows. “We’ll see ourselves out,” Chanyeol says, pout long forgotten as another giant smile stretches across his face. “Have a safe trip. Let us know when you get there!”
“Will do,” Jongdae agrees, standing up himself anyway, so he can walk them to the door. Chanyeol slides into his flame-patterned sneakers half-heartedly, not even bothering to do up the laces, as Baekhyun carefully ties his own shoes in perfect matching bows. “And thanks for the book, guys.”
“Of course,” Chanyeol says, leaning forward and pulling Jongdae into a hug. Jongdae sighs into Chanyeol’s collarbone. “Maybe Chinese food will make you taller.” Baekhyun slaps Chanyeol lightly on the side.
“Watch it,” he says, and Chanyeol sheepishly scratches the back of his head.
“Fine, fine. We look forward to reading your diary,” He still grumbling as Jongdae closes the door. “I’ll tell you if Taemin gets into Jongin’s pants!”
“Fat chance he will!” Jongdae yells back, not sure if Chanyeol can hear him.
Jongdae turns around and surveys his apartment with a heavy sigh. He’s got sheets thrown over everything but his sofa and television, and his mom had dropped by yesterday to collect all of his plants. He’d notified the owner of his building that he’d be gone, and he’d definitely seen to all the gas and water bills.
Jongdae’s tired just thinking about the past week and a half.
So instead, he just curls up on his sofa, and cracks open his new book.
He knows some of these characters, from rudimentary hanja classes in grade-school, but they look a little different; just enough to confuse him. Next to the characters is written the pinyin pronunciation, roman letters with confusing accent marks, and then the Korean equivalent.
Jongdae sighs. “Ni hao,” he says aloud, because he’s the only person home. Hello. “My name is Kim Jongdae.” He tries to say the words, but his tongue fumbles over them.
He presses his fingertips to his temples. “Wow, I’m really doomed.”
*
Junmyeon drives him to the airport.
“So, just… remember to send all your articles to your editor on time, okay? You’ll definitely have trouble with the internet there, so plan ahead.”
“Yes, I know,” Jongdae says, staring out the window.
“And Kris, our main contact at the temple-“
“Kris,” Jongdae says, and Junmyeon rolls his eyes. “His name is Kris?”
“Yes, Kris is going to pick you up, so you don’t have to worry about getting lost or figuring out a taxi with your dismal language skills-“
“I know,” Jongdae says again. The large body of water beneath the highway to Incheon is vast. The sky is gray this morning. “I remember.”
“Kyungsoo says to tell you not to be culturally insensitive,” Junmyeon says, after a long moment of silence. “And Jongin…”
“Jongin texted me this morning and told me to stop frowning at myself in the mirror because things weren’t going to be bad.”
“Were you?” Junmyeon asks, and Jongdae looks over at him to see a smile curling at his lips.
“Was I what?”
“Frowning at yourself in the mirror.”
Jongdae crosses his arms across his chest. “Of course I was,” Jongdae mumbles. “What else would I be doing at six o’clock in the morning?”
“Studying Chinese,” Junmyeon says, and Jongdae closes his eyes.
“It’s Mandarin.”
“Right, right.” Junmyeon is grinning. Jongdae can hear it in his voice.
Jongdae can also see the airport now, looming on the horizon, beyond the seemingly unending suspension highway they drive along. Airport buses are on their right and left.
“Why me?” Jongdae asks. “Why couldn’t I take a two week trip to Turkey?”
“Because you’ll do a good job,” Junmyeon says. “No one’s ever lasted as long as you did under Yunho and Changmin without complaining, you know. I didn’t want to tell you that when you got placed under them, because frankly, that would have been demoralizing, but… The boss thinks you’re pretty special.”
“Lucky me,” Jongdae says, and Junmyeon laughs. “I did a Naver search,” Jongdae says. “On martial arts in China. Since I’m staying with them.”
“Quality research,” Junmyeon says. “That degree you got is really coming in handy. Good to know you’ve mastered the ability to use a search engine.”
“Shut up,” Jongdae says. “I’ve been busy.”
“You’re not really supposed to write about the dates and facts part of the history, you know. The stuff you find on Wikipedia. Not really.”
“What am I supposed to write about, then?”
“The place,” Junmyeon says. “The people.” He nudges Jongdae with his elbow. “It’s about feelings. People don’t read our magazine for a list of dates.”
Jongdae sucks his lower lip into his mouth, and stares at the road ahead. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You’re a good writer, Jongdae. At least you were in college. But…”
“But?”
“Sometimes your writing’s a little bit cold. You need to find the feelings in what you’re writing.”
“I know,” Jongdae says. “I’m working on it.”
“This is your chance.”
“So everyone keeps saying.”
The man waiting for Jongdae at Changsha Huanghua International Airport when he arrives is not anything like what Jongdae has been expecting. For one thing, he’s, like, twice Jongdae’s height; even taller than Chanyeol, and broad-shouldered. He’s holding a call sign with Jongdae’s name in Korean letters, and wearing an expensive looking white button down with ruffles with his tailored jeans. He has a shock of over-bleached blond hair, too, and Jongdae almost thinks he’s imagined seeing his name on the sign, because this cannot be the temple-guy who is supposed to pick him up.
“Oh yes,” Jongdae says to himself. “One of our contacts. I don’t know why I was expecting a monk when the guy’s name is Kris.”
“Ni hao,” Jongdae ventures, when he gets close enough that he thinks Kris will hear him.
Kris looks down, which makes Jongdae feel like a kid trying to get the teacher’s attention, or something, and narrows his eyes. “Ni hao,” he says back, and Jongdae scrambles to remember the next thing he’s supposed to say, but all he can remember, off the top of his head, is ’ta shi wo de lao peng you’, which he thinks means ‘he is my old friend’, so that’s not very useful. “Or would it just be better to say hello?” Kris says, after a few moments, in passable Korean.
Jongdae colors, the flush creeping up his neck. “Oh, thank god you speak Korean,” Jongdae says. “All I could remember how to say was something about old friends or-“
“Slow, slow,” Kris says. “I studied in Korea for a while, so I know enough to get by, but not so quickly.”
“Sorry,” Jongdae says, and runs a hand through his hair. “I’m nervous.”
“There are enough visitors at the temple. Don’t be nervous,” Kris says. “There’s another Korean guy there. And my friend, Lu Han, he speaks Korean. You’ll be fine.”
Kris guides Jongdae out of the airport and toward the parking garage, where he stops in front of a white van with a big ostentatious dragon painted on the side. “Um.”
“That’s not my fault,” Kris says. “Lu Han likes to play jokes.” Kris puts Jongdae’s two suitcases in the back, and then unlocks the doors. “It’s about a long drive, up into the mountains, so you might want to make yourself comfortable.”
The roads are packed, Jongdae notices, for the first hour, but then traffic slowly starts to die down as they drive out into places where there’s still greenery.
The traffic isn’t the problem. The problem is Kris, who drives a little like he’s completely and totally drunk.
Even on the straight roads, the car wavers from left to right in between the lines, sometimes venturing ever so slightly into oncoming traffic before Kris overcorrects, sending them careening back into their lane.
“Are there always a lot of visitors at the temple?” Jongdae asks, breaking the silence. Talking helps calm his stomach. He loosens his death grip on the passenger grip above the door.
“Depends on what you mean by a lot,” Kris says. “We have four, and you, and in nine months is the big competition.” Kris sounds calm, face serious and motionless, like he isn’t sending them hurtling forward in a deadly fashion, jostling and screeching along the two lane roads.
“Competition?” Jongdae asks, shifting in his seat. His left thigh has gone to sleep, in contrast to the ache of his head where he’s cracked it against the window so many times. He slaps at it, which has Kris staring at him peculiarly out of the corner of his eye, so Jongdae smiles at him sheepishly and prays Kris keeps his eyes on the road. “Sorry, I tried to do some research but there was so much else-“
“You’ll learn,” Kris says. “Yes, there is a international martial arts competition in Hainan Province. Many people come to the temple to get away from distractions, in order to improve their skills.” Kris doesn’t smile, and Jongdae is starting to think that maybe that’s just… not Kris’s thing.
“I see,” Jongdae says. “Do you-“ Kris turns sharply to the left, and Jongdae hits his head again. “Ow,” he whispers to himself.
“No,” Kris says. “I’m not good at that sort of stuff.” He keeps his eyes straight ahead this time, and Jongdae feels a little relief that this man’s hand-eye coordination is not used in other terrible ways, like kung fu or whatever.
“Okay,” Jongdae says, and bites down on his lip. He turns, and decides to watch the scenery go by out the window, and hopes it doesn’t make him sick.
Outside the car, the greenery has become more lush, almost tropical, and Jongdae’s mesmerized by the tall pillars he’d read about but never actually had been able to picture in his head. He pulls his camera out and snaps a few photos out the rolled down window. He hasn’t really gotten to know his new camera yet, and he’s afraid he’ll drop it if he leans out too far, with the way Kris is driving, but he thinks he might have gotten a couple of good shots.
He pulls back into the car and rolls the window back up, because the air outside is too thick, and the car’s air conditioning is definitely preferable, and leans his head against the glass.
“Your name is Jongdae, right?” Kris says, and Jongdae blinks, realizing he’d nodded off. It must have been his self-preservation instincts, he thinks. Or some sort of mercy-sleep to calm his fear. They’re on a winding single-lane road, now.
“Yes,” he says, and notices that the sun is setting, turning the hills a dark purple out the van window. It’s pretty, Jongdae thinks. It’s still almost surreal that he’s going to be living out here for an entire year. “Kim Jongdae.”
“No one’s going to be able to say that,” Kris says. “Seriously.” He lifts one of his hands from the steering wheel, and the car swerves right. Jongdae’s almost choked by his seatbelt. “I’m going to call you Chenchen.”
“What.”
“Chenchen. Isn’t it cute?”
“My name is Jongdae.” Jongdae frowns and presses his fingers to his neck. “Not ‘Chenchen’.”
“Just Chen is good, too,” Kris replies, and Jongdae looks over at him in disbelief.
“But no problem with Kris, of course,” Jongdae mutters sarcastically.
“I’m just saying that ‘Jongdae’ is a hard name, and not everyone at the temple can pronounce Korean. Especially Zitao.”
“Zitao?” Jongdae asks. The name sounds heavy on his tongue, and incredibly foreign. Jongdae kind of wonders if he’d object to being called Miyagi-san.
“Huang Zitao,” Kris says. “One of the most accomplished wushu masters in the country, awards-wise.” He furrows his brow, and then slams on the brakes, and Jongdae wonders if he’s even going to make it to the temple alive. “You’ll see. We’ll be getting back in time for dinner.”
If Jongdae is ever able to eat again, with the way his stomach is rebelling against everything, right now. “Okay,” Jongdae says. “Okay.”
*
When the car pulls to a stop, Jongdae almost falls out of the passenger seat and into the road, bending himself over in half and resting his hands on his thighs.
“If you’re the type to get carsick,” Kris says, “you ought to have said something. I could have slowed down.” Jongdae wants to glare at the man incredulously, but he’s too busy trying not to fall over.
There’s a derisive laugh, though, from in front of Jongdae. Jongdae looks up through his hair and sees a smiling man, with an exaggerated dimple in his cheek and a mischievous look in his eyes.
The man points at Kris. “Duizhang is a bad driver,” he says. “Alive?” His Korean isn’t as good as Kris’s. Far more limited, Jongdae can tell, but Jongdae understands enough to nod his head profusely before he remembers he’s nauseous. He clutches at his stomach.
“I am not a bad driver,” Kris says, shaking his hair out of his face. He’s still got the same, unchanging expression he’s had all day as he pulls Jongdae’s two suitcases out of the van.
He starts talking rapidly to the shorter man with the dimple in Mandarin. It all sounds like nothing to Jongdae, whose list of Chinese phrases apparently include ‘hi’ and ‘he’s my old friend.’
“Hey,” the man says, poking Jongdae in the shoulder. Jongdae blinks, and rouses himself from his stupor. “My name. Yixing.”
“Ee-shing?” Jongdae repeats, and Yixing nods, looking satisfied.
“Yes,” Yixing says. “You are Chen.”
“What?”
“Duizhang says you are Chen.” Jongdae looks over at Kris, who he assumes is duizhang, and Kris looks back at him, raising one eyebrow slowly.
“Yeah,” Jongdae says with an exhale. “I guess I’m Chen.” Yixing smiles triumphantly and tugs on the sleeve of Jongdae’s t-shirt.
“Welcome to China,” Yixing says, and there’s a glimmer in his eyes that Jongdae thinks seems interesting.
“Thanks,” Jongdae says, and looks out at the mountains that surround the small temple. It’s a beautiful view. He thinks, for the first time since he got this assignment, sinking into that leather chair in Lee Soo Man’s office as the man played the mental games he was famous for, that this might actually be cool. “I’m happy to be here.”
*
Yixing drags him off, each of them carrying one of Jongdae’s suitcases, as Kris climbs back into the van to go park it somewhere. “You will stay here,” Yixing says. “With Huang Zitao.” Yixing shrugs. “Zitao is very cute.”
“Okay,” Jongdae says, tentatively, in Mandarin, and Yixing beams and gives him a thumbs up.
He guides Jongdae down steps, both of them straining under the weight of Jongdae’s bags, until they arrive at a smaller building. “It looks old,” Jongdae says. It’s not a complaint; it’s more of an observation, and Yixing seems to realize that.
“The inside is new,” Yixing replies. “Not old.”
“Okay,” Jongdae says.
“Dinner will have a bell,” Yixing says, and Jongdae nods. “Come to the front.” He gestures up toward the way they came.
“Thank you,” Jongdae says. “I mean, xie xie.”
“No problem,” Yixing says. “Until later.”
Jongdae looks around the room. It’s simple. There are no dressers or televisions. No air-conditioning unit, either. There’s one power outlet: it seems to connect out to a generator rather than to an electric line. Jongdae doesn’t imagine they have electricity up here. There are two beds. They’re more like pallets than beds, really; sort of like Korean traditional bedding. Jongdae’s is folded up. The other one, on the opposite side of the long, narrow wooden room from where Yixing had left Jongdae’s suitcases, is all in disarray, powder blue blankets more on the floor than on the pallet, and sleeping clothes lying atop a couple of small round pillows.
Jongdae’s gone back in time, then, as well as to a completely new culture. Great.
Jongdae peels off his backpack, where he’s stored his laptop, camera, and his heavy ‘Mandarin for Beginners’ book, and sets it next to his own bedding.
Jongdae is in freaking China. It hits him all at once, and so hard that it knocks the breath right out of him. China.
Jongdae’s been out of the country exactly once in his life before this, and it was to go to Thailand for his mother’s 50th birthday. They’d had a Korean tour guide, and Jongdae had been unable go on many of the outdoor trips because he’d had finals the next week and his parents had barely even let him come.
Jongdae hasn’t had many other opportunities to go anywhere; it’s one of the reasons he wanted to become a travel journalist. He wants to see more. Do more. When he’d graduated university, with a double degree in photography and journalism, Junmyeon had recruited him to SM Geographic almost immediately, and Jongdae had been happy to go work for one of the best magazines in the world.
So really, this is Jongdae’s dream, even if the circumstances are different than he’d expected. Jongdae should make the best of this trip. Learn as much as he can.
Maybe he should start with Mandarin.
He’s leaning over to unzip his backpack and collect his book when a pair of feet appear in the doorway.
Jongdae looks up, and lets go of his backpack with numb hands.
*
The first time Jongdae meets Huang Zitao, Huang Zitao is mostly naked, wet, and carrying a sword.
He’s not entirely sure what he had been expecting, when Yixing had told him about his roommate, but it certainly wasn’t this.
“Hi?” Jongdae squeaks, in what’s probably unintelligible Mandarin, and Huang Zitao seems confused, looking Jongdae up and down, while Jongdae tries his very best not to do the same, lest the towel slip even lower under his gaze. His chest and shoulders are glistening with water drops.
“Who are you?” Huang Zitao asks, and Jongdae knows that phrase; he’d memorized it on the plane, and practiced saying it a million times until the Chinese woman next to him had taken pity on him and corrected his pronunciation. He knows how to answer, too, but there’s a man standing ninety percent naked in the doorway holding a sword, and Jongdae can’t seem to find his voice.
The man seems unconcerned with his own partial nudity, but he seems very concerned with what Jongdae is doing in this room.
“I’m,” Jongdae says, stumbling over the words. “I’m Kim Jongdae.”
Zitao stares at him blankly, and Jongdae anxiously musses his hair with both hands. Then he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, because maybe things will be clearer without abs and dangerous weapons.
“Jongdae,” Jongdae says again, pointing at himself. He cracks open one eye, and Zitao’s gaze is solemn and, Jongdae thinks, perplexed. Jongdae sighs, defeated. “Chen. I’m Chen.”
Zitao’s expression clears. “Ah! I’m Zitao.” Jongdae watches, open-mouthed, as Zitao walks over to the other side of the room and picks up a piece of fabric that Jongdae hadn’t noticed before, and starts cleaning the blade of his sword. Now Jongdae thinks maybe the sword had been sitting in the doorway, in a sheath, when he’d come in, because the sheath, after Zitao cleans the sword and returns it, looks a bit more familiar and a lot less ominous. Jongdae watches him in silence. “Korea?”
“Yes,” Jongdae says. “Korea.”
Zitao pulls on a black shirt, and Jongdae quickly looks away as the towel hits the floor. There’s the sound of trousers being hastily pulled on. “Mandarin?” Zitao asks, and Jongdae feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns.
Up close, like this, Zitao is very tall. Jongdae leans back to look up at him.
When Jongdae had first seen Zitao in the doorway, he’d thought the other man’s features were dark and serious. But now, up close, Jongdae actually thinks he looks… soft. His eyes are kind, Jongdae notices, and he has a small, sweet smile on his face that makes him look young and innocent. “No,” Jongdae replies. “Bu hui.”
Zitao’s eyes crinkle up into half-moons, and his dark hair falls into his face. “Okay,” he says, and he seems amused, and Jongdae realizes that there isn’t much space between them. He can feel Zitao’s heat through his t-shirt, and Jongdae swallows and takes a half-step back. Zitao taps his own nose. “Tao.”
“You’re Tao?” Jongdae echoes, and Tao nods.
“Yes,” Tao says. “I’m Tao. You’re Chen.” His voice is higher than Jongdae expects, when he finally hears more than one word in a row. It sort of floats up into the space between them.
“Right,” Jongdae says, and he realizes he’s reached the end of his Mandarin. “Right.”
The dinner bell rings, and Tao’s eyes crinkle up again. “Dinner,” Tao says, and Jongdae catches the faintest hint of cedar as Tao lets his other hand fall from Jongdae’s shoulder, large callused hand dragging, just a little, along the bare skin of Jongdae’s arm.
Jongdae shivers, and swallows. “Dinner,” Jongdae repeats, careful to copy Tao’s tones. “Dinner.”
“Good,” Tao says, smile growing, eyes sparkling, and Jongdae, inexplicably, blushes.
*
At dinner, Jongdae ends up sitting between Tao and a fellow Korean, named Minseok.
“But you can call me Xiumin,” he says, and Jongdae stares at him.
“But your name is Minseok.”
Xiumin laughs. “No one here calls me that. It’s easier to take a Chinese name.”
“Mine is Chen,” Jongdae says woefully, and Xiumin pats him on the back.
“That’s not bad. Lu Han,” and he gestures to a doll-faced boy across the table who’s watching everything around him with a wide-eyes look of entertainment, “calls me Baozi. It’s like a dumpling.”
“That’s worse,” Jongdae agrees, and Xiumin slurps up more noodles. “So what you’re telling me is that I shouldn’t feel bad, because no one gets to keep their name.”
“No,” Lu Han says, suddenly interested in their conversation. Jongdae’s first impression had been that Lu Han was rather like a goldfish, but his gaze, now, is sharp. He’s also, Jongdae notices, listening and speaking in Korean. Lu Han points around the table. “Yixing, Zitao and I use our real names.”
“Oh,” Jongdae says, and then points down to the end of the table, where Yixing and Kris are whispering to each other. “And Kris-“
“Ah, yeah,” Lu Han says. “Kris is duizhang. It means leader,” Lu Han explains. “He keeps the temple going. This temple is run on donations. From people who study or have studied here. Your magazine donated, too.”
“Your Korean is really good,” Jongdae says, and Lu Han offers a peace sign.
“I lived there,” he says. “To study and train.”
Jongdae nods, and looks over to his left. Tao is quiet, eating and looking around the table with those wide eyes. In the dimmer light of this main room, lit only by lamps because the sun’s already mostly set, the circles under his eyes seem darker.
Tao must sense Jongdae’s gaze, because he looks up and smiles. There’s a bit of noodle on his chin.
“You have…” Chen starts to say, in Korean, but all gets in return is a blank look. He turns to Xiumin and Lu Han. “How do I…?”
Xiumin laughs. “Wow, duizhang was right; you have zero Chinese.” Lu Han raps his knuckles on the table.
“Maybe it’s good you’re rooming with Zitao,” Lu Han says. “It’ll be like immersion.”
Jongdae offers Tao a lost look, which Tao returns bemusedly, corners of his mouth twitching as they say nothing to each other, language barrier between them.
There’s a strange gentleness to Tao that Jongdae really likes; even though Tao had been holding a sword with his incredibly ripped arms when Jongdae had first seen him, Tao looks more like the type to cuddle puppies and rescue kittens than go on assassination missions.
Lu Han teaches Jongdae how to say ‘there’s noodle on your face’, and Tao laughs and wipes his chin as Jongdae fights to make the words sound remotely like the ones Lu Han had just said.
“Good job,” Tao says, in clear Mandarin. Jongdae feels like a child. “Okay now?”
“Yes,” Jongdae says, and Xiumin claps.
“A successful conversation!” Xiumin says, and Yixing and Kris are looking down at Jongdae now.
“Yay,” Jongdae says sarcastically, but he smiles, broadly, and meets everyone’s eyes. Then he takes a large bite of noodles. They taste salty, and fresh.
Tao taps him on the shoulder.
“There’s noodle on your face,” Tao says, making sure to say it exactly like Lu Han had taught it to him, and Yixing snorts as Tao looks at him eagerly to see if he understands.
“Thanks,” Jongdae says, and wipes his face, pulling his hand away with a piece of noodle that he sees when he looks down at it.
The triumphant look on Tao’s face, when he looks up again, makes something flutter in his chest.
*
Dear Mom,
I made it alive. Tell Kyungsoo not to worry about me, and don’t let dad put cigarettes out in my plants! It turns them colors!
Love,
Jongdae
PART TWO
Pairing: Jongdae/Tao [TAOCHEN]
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jongdae goes to China to learn about wushu, and ends up learning about himself, instead. (AU, 32k)
Warnings: This is so fluffy it may kill you. Also the particular tournament that occurs in this story is a real tournament, but this is not when it’s run, and not how it’s run.
Notes: My TaoChen feelings cannot be controlled. This is probably due to Sarah who ruins my life with her Titanic ships on a regular basis. Thanks to beta-ssi, and the tiny-wives for their ‘encouragement’/schadenfreude, and no thanks at all to Sarah, because I really did not have time to write this.
Lee Soo Man looks at Jongdae from the other side of his impressive oak desk, and steeples his fingers. “You might be wondering why I called.”
Jongdae presses harder into the expensive leather chair, trying to get as far away from his boss as he can without actually utilizing the wheels on his chair to roll backwards. “Yes, sir,” Jongdae says. “It’s just, I’m relatively new, sir, so I-“
“Relatively new, indeed,” Lee Soo Man says, his wrinkled face looking stern and unflappable across the table. Jongdae can feel himself breaking into a cold sweat. Everyone in the office is afraid of Lee Soo Man. Jongdae’s only met him once before. That had been his first day of work, over a year ago, and so Jongdae had been surprised when he’d seen the carefully typed out note, sitting ominously on his desk, that ordered him to report to the top floor as soon as he arrived. “And as with all new employees, I’m going to give you a test.”
“A test, sir?” Jongdae asks, and he discreetly tries to peel his fingers up from the chair where he’s curled them in so tight he’s afraid he might have damaged the leather. “I’m not… fired, sir?”
“Why would I fire you?” Lee Soo Man asks, before he leans across his desk, eyebrows furrowing. “Have you done something I’d have to fire you for?”
The urgent, inquisitive tone strikes terror into Jongdae’s heart, the same way everything Lee Soo Man does strikes terror into everyone’s heart, and Jongdae licks his lips while shaking his head profusely in the negative. “No, sir, of course not, sir. It’s just that I’m a new employee, and you’re the boss, and-“
“Do you think I ever personally fire anyone, Mr. Kim?” Lee Soo Man laughs, relaxing back into his own chair, that looks a bit more like a throne than an office seat, and Jongdae weakly chuckles along with him because he thinks he’s supposed to. “Of course I don’t. I have people I pay to do that for me.” He shuffles a few papers on his desk while Jongdae squirms. “Anyway, I’m giving you an assignment.”
“What… kind of assignment?” Jongdae scratches at his face, careful not to accidentally gauge his face in anxiousness, and tries not to frown. “I mean, I do assignments every day.”
Every day at six in the morning, when Jongdae comes in to work at SM Geographic’s Seoul headquarters, Yunho hands him a giant folder full of detailed phone calls that have to be made, in order to fact-check for articles that will be printed in next month’s magazine.
He usually manages to get through a third of that folder by lunch, around which time Junmyeon, Jongdae’s friend from uni who’d helped him get this job, usually manages to trick him into going out to eat, leaving his carefully packed lunch sitting at the corner of his desk. By the time Jongdae gets back, there’s always a new folder sitting on top of Yunho’s folder, with a post-it note from Shim Changmin that says SLACKER, or something else equally juvenile, in taunting bubble-letters stuck on top. Then Sehun, without fail, drops someone’s coffee, and Jongdae helps clean it up, and then, for the rest of the day, Jongdae’s hands smell like hazelnut cream.
It’s not exactly what he’d always imagined doing, when he’d been studying in university to be a travel journalist, but Jongdae knows there are ladders in every industry and this is the bottom rung of his.
Jongdae’s gotten used to life being a little anti-climatic, anyway. Contentment is more than most hope for, and he’s definitely content. It’s good enough.
“Those are not assignments,” Lee Soo Man says, with a wave of his hand. “That’s drudgery.” Jongdae gulps. “We all have to do it. You’ve done it well, without complaint. Not even Changmin hates you, and he hates everyone.” Jongdae feels like the chair he’s sitting in is so soft he’s slowly sinking into it.
“Ahh, thank you, sir?” Jongdae is pretty sure it’s a compliment.
“Yes,” Lee Soo Man says. “Anyway.” He pauses, and pushes his glasses up on his nose. “An assignment.” Jongdae looks down as his simple black trousers, and brushes off a bit of imaginary lint as he waits. “As you know, this is one of the world’s premiere photojournalism and essay magazines.”
Of course Jongdae knows that. He nervously runs his thumb across his eyebrow, smoothing the hair.
Jongdae looks up to meet his boss’s stare. “Yes, sir. It’s why I wanted to work here, sir.”
“How… earnest.” Lee Soo Man taps his chin. “You’ve been here for a year now, Mr. Kim. I think it’s about time you went and wrote some essays. Don’t you?”
Jongdae’s pulse quickens with excitement and fear. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up. “Me, sir?”
“Yes, you,” Lee Soo Man says. “I do this with all my new, promising employees. I’m giving you a chance to prove you can do the real job.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jongdae says. He’s not sure what makes him ‘promising’. He licks his lips again, standing up from his chair to bow repeatedly. “I appreciate the opportunity, sir.” His dress-shirt is sticking to his back with sweat, probably from a combination of sweat and the leather chair swallowing him whole.
“Don’t you want to know where I’m sending you?” Lee Soo Man asks, an amused glint in his beady eyes. “Or are you just going to hop on a plane with no destination?”
“Oh,” Jongdae says, feeling a blush suffuse his face. “Right.” He stops bowing, and he feels a little bit dizzy, like all the blood in his body is rushing to his head.
“I’m sending you to Hunan, China for a year,” Le Soo Man says, and Jongdae freezes.
“A year?” Jongdae squeaks, and then he slowly straightens. Now Lee Soo Man is definitely amused, a sadistic twist to his lips revealing his enjoyment of Jongdae’s shock.
“Yes,” Lee Soo Man says. “You’re going to live in a renovated temple. Learn about the lives of martial artists who follow more traditional paths of study. Discover the Chinese countryside. Write me things. Interesting things.”
Jongdae’s stomach does flips; horrible ones that make him feel like he’s on a boat during a rainstorm. “I don’t speak Chinese,” Jongdae blurts out, and then feels himself blushing, profusely, as he realizes that sounds like a complaint. “Not that I won’t do it, sir, I’m just surprised that-“
“Good, it’s all settled, then.” Lee Soo Man laces his fingers together. “I’ll give you more information about your assignment through my secretary, Kibeom. You’ll be leaving in two weeks.”
“Is that… Is that all, sir?” Jongdae needs time to process all of this. He needs time to figure out what he’s going to do with his apartment. What he’s going to tell his mom.
He can imagine how that conversation is going to go. ’Hi mom, I’m moving to China for a year. Yeah, mom, in two weeks.’ She’s going to kill him.
“Yes,” Lee Soo Man says. “I’m sure Yunho’s got a massive folder of facts you need to check.”
Jongdae is sure he does, too. “Yes, sir.” Jongdae walks toward the door. His knees are shaking a little, because this all seems very unreal.
“Have a nice day,” Lee Soo Man says, and the cheerful lilt in his voice sends a shiver down Jongdae’s spine as the thick oak door closes behind him.
“Wow,” Junmyeon says. “China.” Junmyeon has the same easy, genial expression on his face as the one Jongdae remembers from when they’d first met, like Jongdae hasn’t just dropped a massive bomb on him. Junmyeon has a habit of looking unflappable, even though Jongdae, and everyone else who knows him well, is very aware that Junmyeon is anything but.
“But I don’t speak any Chinese!” Jongdae wails, smushing his face into his hands as Jongin snickers. “Do you not understand that this is a big deal?”
“No one speaks Chinese,” Kyungsoo says, in a way Jongdae thinks is supposed to sound encouraging. “Chinese is not a language. What you don’t speak is Mandarin.”
“Gee, thanks,” Jongdae says, and Jongin leans across the table to flick Jongdae in the forehead. “I feel so much better about going to a country where I don’t speak the language, now that I know that language is called Mandarin.”
“Don’t whine,” Jongin says. “This sounds totally awesome, to me. Maybe that’s because, hello, you finally get to do your real job.”
“And I’m excited about that!” Jongdae says. He takes a large bite of his bibimbap, the rice and red pepper paste comforting on his tongue. “It’s going to be great, I’m sure. Except the part where I live in a former temple and can’t talk to anyone because I don’t speak Chi—“ Kyungsoo narrows those wide eyes at him, while Junmyeon snickers behind his hand. “Mandarin.”
Kyungsoo gives him a pleased smile, and Jongin shoves a massive bite of kimchi into his face. “Wish I could go,” Jongin says around the mouthful, splattering redish-orange juice onto Junmyeon’s arm, which results in Junmyeon punching him in the shoulder.
“Chew first, child,” Junmyeon says, and Jongin glares at him.
“Me too,” Sehun says, slipping his phone into his pocket and squishing in next to Jongin. “Anything to be done with making coffee for Changmin. And get away from mom and dad.” He points at Kyungsoo and Junmyeon, and Junmyeon sticks his tongue out at Sehun in revenge.
“Super mature,” Jongin says to Junmyeon. “Wow, you’re such a role-model.”
Kyungsoo ignores them all, and turns to Jongdae with an optimistic look on his face that Jongdae thinks makes him look sort of like his eyes are going to pop right out of his head. “Look,” Kyungsoo says. “Just think about it as an epic adventure. When else in your life are you going to be able to just drop everything and go live overseas for a year?”
“Never,” Jongdae admits, taking a sip of his cola to calm the heat on his tongue. He reaches for his chopsticks, and grabs a piece of tuna kimbap. He pushes it between his lips as he thinks.
“Exactly,” Kyungsoo says. “And we’ll all be here, waiting, when you get back-“
“Jongin won’t,” Junmyeon says, and Jongdae looks back over to see that Junmyeon’s got Jongin in a headlock, and Jongin’s still trying to eat as Junmyeon chokes him. “I’ll have killed him by then.” Sehun helpfully sticks a piece of radish into Jongin’s mouth.
“What did I do, in college?” Jongdae says, in a faux-sad tone. “Did I even go to college? Or did I meet all of you in a glorified kindergarten?” He sighs and rubs his nose. “Ugh.”
Kyungsoo pats his shoulder sympathetically. “Now, Jongdae, you know it’s unhealthy to take out your feelings of fear and displacement on other people.”
“My feelings of-“ Jongdae raises an eyebrow. “Have you been reading Baekhyun’s self-help books again?”
Kyungsoo stares at him with wide, unreadable eyes. “For your information,” Kyungsoo says, “as an busy engineer, the only literature I read in my free time is erotic.” Kyungsoo blinks, and Jongdae looks at him with a slow-building horror. “I… was just telling a joke, Jongdae.” He laughs, nervously, and Jongdae turns to look down at his bibimbap.
“Better luck next time, hyung,” Jongin says, tapping the back of Kyungsoo’s hand, before snagging the last bit of kimbap without remorse. “Maybe I should work harder to fix your social skills.” He spits bits of rice out as he speaks.
“Um,” Sehun says, and Jongin starts play-fighting with him.
“China’s not looking so bad right now,” Jongdae says wryly, mostly to himself, and Junmyeon laughs.
“I went on a two week trip to Turkey for my ‘test’,” Junmyeon says, making air-quotes. “Looks like the boss has high hopes for you.” Junmyeon smiles, and Jongdae’s belly flops around as he thinks, yet again, about an entire year away.
High hopes, Jongdae muses, make him worried.
“Stop looking like you’re being sent to prison instead of on an all-expenses-paid exotic retreat, please,” Jongin says, shaking his hair out of his face. “Like Kyungsoo-hyung said, it’s an adventure.”
“Why don’t you go on an adventure, then?” Jongdae leans back in his seat.
“Like what?” Jongin asks, tossing his hair.
“You could always go on a date with your stalker,” Junmyeon says. “What’s his name, again? Taemin?”
“Wow, you suck,” Jongin says. “No way would I ever.”
“Can I come with you?” Kyungsoo murmurs to Jongdae, smiling despite himself, and Jongdae takes a deep breath.
“Oh,” Jongdae says. “Hi!”
“Wow,” Chanyeol says. “That’s the resigned face Jongin makes when Taemin shows up to try and con him into a date again.”
“I’m sure it’s slightly more excited than that,” Jongdae replies. Baekhyun walks in behind Chanyeol, both of them shedding their shoes in the doorway and walking in like it’s their apartment, not Jongdae’s.
“I have a present for you!” Chanyeol says, producing a brown paper bag from ‘Kyobo Books’ from behind his back. “Because I am your very favorite friend from college.”
Jongdae looks at the bag suspiciously. “Is what’s inside going to get me arrested?”
Baekhyun giggles from behind them on the sofa, and Chanyeol pouts. “Would I do that?”
Jongdae opens his mouth to respond as Baekhyun’s giggles gain in volume.
“Err, would I do that again?” Chanyeol’s smile is wide and luminous, and it’s gotten Jongdae in trouble before. Still, Chanyeol means well, so Jongdae takes the bag. Inside is a thick, paperback book.
“What’s this?” The bag is actually super heavy, and Jongdae has to slide the handle up to his wrist to hang there so it doesn’t cut into his fingers.
“It’s clearly a book,” Chanyeol says, shaking his head to try and get his too-long bangs out of his eyes. Lately he’s been wearing them tied back into his ponytail, but the ponytail is nowhere to be seen, today, hiding Chanyeol’s ears from view. “Duh.”
Jongdae pulls it out. “’Mandarin for Beginners’?” Jongdae stares down at the tome in his hands, unblinking.
“You’re supposed to study what’s inside, not the cover,” Chanyeol says. Jongdae walks over to the sofa, where Baekhyun sits, plopping next to him. “You shouldn’t look that glazed over before you even open it. It’s from myself and Baekhyun, actually. It was his idea.”
Jongdae smiles at Baekhyun, then at Chanyeol. “Thanks, guys, this was really thoughtful.”
“We heard through the grapevine that you were panicking about the whole… language thing,” Baekhyun says. “So Chanyeol and I thought maybe this would be a start?” Baekhyun leans into Jongdae’s shoulder, long graceful fingers running along the Chinese characters on the cover.
“Yeah,” Chanyeol says. “Plus I asked the guy at the bookstore which one was the best choice for someone ‘completely incompetent and useless at learning’, and he said this one was so simple a ten year old could use it.” Chanyeol excitedly squeezes in next to Jongdae on the other side. “So you should be able to manage. Maybe.”
Jongdae has no doubt that Chanyeol said that exact thing to the bookstore employee, and Baekhyun’s quiet smile confirms it. “Thanks for the high expectations,” Jongdae says.
“Don’t think I don’t remember that time you tried to learn Japanese because you were obsessed with ninjas,” Chanyeol says. “You walked around calling everyone in our freshman year seminar Miyagi-san and you tried to teach yourself origami-“
“Shut up,” Jongdae says. “It was a phase.” He scratches carefully at his hair, which he’d gelled up carefully today to keep Chanyeol from touching it. “Not like you didn’t have… phases.”
Jongdae still has photographic evidence of the time Chanyeol had worn that yellow dress out clubbing and he will not hesitate to use it as leverage.
“For the last time, that was a bet, and really, it’s all Jongin’s fault, that little-“
Baekhyun clears his throat. “Well, you probably need to pack,” Baekhyun says. “We wouldn’t want to keep you from getting things done.”
“What can he have to pack to go live at a temple with a whole lot of people who are basically Jackie Chan?”
“Clothes,” Jongdae says. “Hygiene items. Band-aids.”
“Are you going to learn martial arts?” Baekhyun asks sweetly. “Because then you can learn how to kick Chanyeol’s butt.”
“Whose side are you on, anyway?” Chanyeol grumbles, and Jongdae feels like he’s trapped between Bert and Ernie on the couch. “Besides, you know Jongdae has zero muscle control.” Chanyeol snickers. “I’m sure we all remember the ‘Dancing Machine’ incident.”
“I blame everything, forever, on Jongin,” Jongdae says decisively, and then he and Chanyeol high-five in truce as Baekhyun shakes his head in mock dismay, but Jongdae knows he isn’t upset because he can see that ever-present smile lurking in the set of his mouth.
“We really should go, though,” Baekhyun says reluctantly. “Our other two roommates are going to be home soon, and I don’t trust them.”
“I wouldn’t trust Jongin, either, but Sehun can take care of himself.”
“But can he take care of them both?” Baekhyun muses, and Jongdae snickers.
Chanyeol huffs, stretching his long legs out in front of him like a toddler, before he stands. He offers Baekhyun a hand up, tugging gently, and Baekhyun follows. “We’ll see ourselves out,” Chanyeol says, pout long forgotten as another giant smile stretches across his face. “Have a safe trip. Let us know when you get there!”
“Will do,” Jongdae agrees, standing up himself anyway, so he can walk them to the door. Chanyeol slides into his flame-patterned sneakers half-heartedly, not even bothering to do up the laces, as Baekhyun carefully ties his own shoes in perfect matching bows. “And thanks for the book, guys.”
“Of course,” Chanyeol says, leaning forward and pulling Jongdae into a hug. Jongdae sighs into Chanyeol’s collarbone. “Maybe Chinese food will make you taller.” Baekhyun slaps Chanyeol lightly on the side.
“Watch it,” he says, and Chanyeol sheepishly scratches the back of his head.
“Fine, fine. We look forward to reading your diary,” He still grumbling as Jongdae closes the door. “I’ll tell you if Taemin gets into Jongin’s pants!”
“Fat chance he will!” Jongdae yells back, not sure if Chanyeol can hear him.
Jongdae turns around and surveys his apartment with a heavy sigh. He’s got sheets thrown over everything but his sofa and television, and his mom had dropped by yesterday to collect all of his plants. He’d notified the owner of his building that he’d be gone, and he’d definitely seen to all the gas and water bills.
Jongdae’s tired just thinking about the past week and a half.
So instead, he just curls up on his sofa, and cracks open his new book.
He knows some of these characters, from rudimentary hanja classes in grade-school, but they look a little different; just enough to confuse him. Next to the characters is written the pinyin pronunciation, roman letters with confusing accent marks, and then the Korean equivalent.
Jongdae sighs. “Ni hao,” he says aloud, because he’s the only person home. Hello. “My name is Kim Jongdae.” He tries to say the words, but his tongue fumbles over them.
He presses his fingertips to his temples. “Wow, I’m really doomed.”
Junmyeon drives him to the airport.
“So, just… remember to send all your articles to your editor on time, okay? You’ll definitely have trouble with the internet there, so plan ahead.”
“Yes, I know,” Jongdae says, staring out the window.
“And Kris, our main contact at the temple-“
“Kris,” Jongdae says, and Junmyeon rolls his eyes. “His name is Kris?”
“Yes, Kris is going to pick you up, so you don’t have to worry about getting lost or figuring out a taxi with your dismal language skills-“
“I know,” Jongdae says again. The large body of water beneath the highway to Incheon is vast. The sky is gray this morning. “I remember.”
“Kyungsoo says to tell you not to be culturally insensitive,” Junmyeon says, after a long moment of silence. “And Jongin…”
“Jongin texted me this morning and told me to stop frowning at myself in the mirror because things weren’t going to be bad.”
“Were you?” Junmyeon asks, and Jongdae looks over at him to see a smile curling at his lips.
“Was I what?”
“Frowning at yourself in the mirror.”
Jongdae crosses his arms across his chest. “Of course I was,” Jongdae mumbles. “What else would I be doing at six o’clock in the morning?”
“Studying Chinese,” Junmyeon says, and Jongdae closes his eyes.
“It’s Mandarin.”
“Right, right.” Junmyeon is grinning. Jongdae can hear it in his voice.
Jongdae can also see the airport now, looming on the horizon, beyond the seemingly unending suspension highway they drive along. Airport buses are on their right and left.
“Why me?” Jongdae asks. “Why couldn’t I take a two week trip to Turkey?”
“Because you’ll do a good job,” Junmyeon says. “No one’s ever lasted as long as you did under Yunho and Changmin without complaining, you know. I didn’t want to tell you that when you got placed under them, because frankly, that would have been demoralizing, but… The boss thinks you’re pretty special.”
“Lucky me,” Jongdae says, and Junmyeon laughs. “I did a Naver search,” Jongdae says. “On martial arts in China. Since I’m staying with them.”
“Quality research,” Junmyeon says. “That degree you got is really coming in handy. Good to know you’ve mastered the ability to use a search engine.”
“Shut up,” Jongdae says. “I’ve been busy.”
“You’re not really supposed to write about the dates and facts part of the history, you know. The stuff you find on Wikipedia. Not really.”
“What am I supposed to write about, then?”
“The place,” Junmyeon says. “The people.” He nudges Jongdae with his elbow. “It’s about feelings. People don’t read our magazine for a list of dates.”
Jongdae sucks his lower lip into his mouth, and stares at the road ahead. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You’re a good writer, Jongdae. At least you were in college. But…”
“But?”
“Sometimes your writing’s a little bit cold. You need to find the feelings in what you’re writing.”
“I know,” Jongdae says. “I’m working on it.”
“This is your chance.”
“So everyone keeps saying.”
The man waiting for Jongdae at Changsha Huanghua International Airport when he arrives is not anything like what Jongdae has been expecting. For one thing, he’s, like, twice Jongdae’s height; even taller than Chanyeol, and broad-shouldered. He’s holding a call sign with Jongdae’s name in Korean letters, and wearing an expensive looking white button down with ruffles with his tailored jeans. He has a shock of over-bleached blond hair, too, and Jongdae almost thinks he’s imagined seeing his name on the sign, because this cannot be the temple-guy who is supposed to pick him up.
“Oh yes,” Jongdae says to himself. “One of our contacts. I don’t know why I was expecting a monk when the guy’s name is Kris.”
“Ni hao,” Jongdae ventures, when he gets close enough that he thinks Kris will hear him.
Kris looks down, which makes Jongdae feel like a kid trying to get the teacher’s attention, or something, and narrows his eyes. “Ni hao,” he says back, and Jongdae scrambles to remember the next thing he’s supposed to say, but all he can remember, off the top of his head, is ’ta shi wo de lao peng you’, which he thinks means ‘he is my old friend’, so that’s not very useful. “Or would it just be better to say hello?” Kris says, after a few moments, in passable Korean.
Jongdae colors, the flush creeping up his neck. “Oh, thank god you speak Korean,” Jongdae says. “All I could remember how to say was something about old friends or-“
“Slow, slow,” Kris says. “I studied in Korea for a while, so I know enough to get by, but not so quickly.”
“Sorry,” Jongdae says, and runs a hand through his hair. “I’m nervous.”
“There are enough visitors at the temple. Don’t be nervous,” Kris says. “There’s another Korean guy there. And my friend, Lu Han, he speaks Korean. You’ll be fine.”
Kris guides Jongdae out of the airport and toward the parking garage, where he stops in front of a white van with a big ostentatious dragon painted on the side. “Um.”
“That’s not my fault,” Kris says. “Lu Han likes to play jokes.” Kris puts Jongdae’s two suitcases in the back, and then unlocks the doors. “It’s about a long drive, up into the mountains, so you might want to make yourself comfortable.”
The roads are packed, Jongdae notices, for the first hour, but then traffic slowly starts to die down as they drive out into places where there’s still greenery.
The traffic isn’t the problem. The problem is Kris, who drives a little like he’s completely and totally drunk.
Even on the straight roads, the car wavers from left to right in between the lines, sometimes venturing ever so slightly into oncoming traffic before Kris overcorrects, sending them careening back into their lane.
“Are there always a lot of visitors at the temple?” Jongdae asks, breaking the silence. Talking helps calm his stomach. He loosens his death grip on the passenger grip above the door.
“Depends on what you mean by a lot,” Kris says. “We have four, and you, and in nine months is the big competition.” Kris sounds calm, face serious and motionless, like he isn’t sending them hurtling forward in a deadly fashion, jostling and screeching along the two lane roads.
“Competition?” Jongdae asks, shifting in his seat. His left thigh has gone to sleep, in contrast to the ache of his head where he’s cracked it against the window so many times. He slaps at it, which has Kris staring at him peculiarly out of the corner of his eye, so Jongdae smiles at him sheepishly and prays Kris keeps his eyes on the road. “Sorry, I tried to do some research but there was so much else-“
“You’ll learn,” Kris says. “Yes, there is a international martial arts competition in Hainan Province. Many people come to the temple to get away from distractions, in order to improve their skills.” Kris doesn’t smile, and Jongdae is starting to think that maybe that’s just… not Kris’s thing.
“I see,” Jongdae says. “Do you-“ Kris turns sharply to the left, and Jongdae hits his head again. “Ow,” he whispers to himself.
“No,” Kris says. “I’m not good at that sort of stuff.” He keeps his eyes straight ahead this time, and Jongdae feels a little relief that this man’s hand-eye coordination is not used in other terrible ways, like kung fu or whatever.
“Okay,” Jongdae says, and bites down on his lip. He turns, and decides to watch the scenery go by out the window, and hopes it doesn’t make him sick.
Outside the car, the greenery has become more lush, almost tropical, and Jongdae’s mesmerized by the tall pillars he’d read about but never actually had been able to picture in his head. He pulls his camera out and snaps a few photos out the rolled down window. He hasn’t really gotten to know his new camera yet, and he’s afraid he’ll drop it if he leans out too far, with the way Kris is driving, but he thinks he might have gotten a couple of good shots.
He pulls back into the car and rolls the window back up, because the air outside is too thick, and the car’s air conditioning is definitely preferable, and leans his head against the glass.
“Your name is Jongdae, right?” Kris says, and Jongdae blinks, realizing he’d nodded off. It must have been his self-preservation instincts, he thinks. Or some sort of mercy-sleep to calm his fear. They’re on a winding single-lane road, now.
“Yes,” he says, and notices that the sun is setting, turning the hills a dark purple out the van window. It’s pretty, Jongdae thinks. It’s still almost surreal that he’s going to be living out here for an entire year. “Kim Jongdae.”
“No one’s going to be able to say that,” Kris says. “Seriously.” He lifts one of his hands from the steering wheel, and the car swerves right. Jongdae’s almost choked by his seatbelt. “I’m going to call you Chenchen.”
“What.”
“Chenchen. Isn’t it cute?”
“My name is Jongdae.” Jongdae frowns and presses his fingers to his neck. “Not ‘Chenchen’.”
“Just Chen is good, too,” Kris replies, and Jongdae looks over at him in disbelief.
“But no problem with Kris, of course,” Jongdae mutters sarcastically.
“I’m just saying that ‘Jongdae’ is a hard name, and not everyone at the temple can pronounce Korean. Especially Zitao.”
“Zitao?” Jongdae asks. The name sounds heavy on his tongue, and incredibly foreign. Jongdae kind of wonders if he’d object to being called Miyagi-san.
“Huang Zitao,” Kris says. “One of the most accomplished wushu masters in the country, awards-wise.” He furrows his brow, and then slams on the brakes, and Jongdae wonders if he’s even going to make it to the temple alive. “You’ll see. We’ll be getting back in time for dinner.”
If Jongdae is ever able to eat again, with the way his stomach is rebelling against everything, right now. “Okay,” Jongdae says. “Okay.”
When the car pulls to a stop, Jongdae almost falls out of the passenger seat and into the road, bending himself over in half and resting his hands on his thighs.
“If you’re the type to get carsick,” Kris says, “you ought to have said something. I could have slowed down.” Jongdae wants to glare at the man incredulously, but he’s too busy trying not to fall over.
There’s a derisive laugh, though, from in front of Jongdae. Jongdae looks up through his hair and sees a smiling man, with an exaggerated dimple in his cheek and a mischievous look in his eyes.
The man points at Kris. “Duizhang is a bad driver,” he says. “Alive?” His Korean isn’t as good as Kris’s. Far more limited, Jongdae can tell, but Jongdae understands enough to nod his head profusely before he remembers he’s nauseous. He clutches at his stomach.
“I am not a bad driver,” Kris says, shaking his hair out of his face. He’s still got the same, unchanging expression he’s had all day as he pulls Jongdae’s two suitcases out of the van.
He starts talking rapidly to the shorter man with the dimple in Mandarin. It all sounds like nothing to Jongdae, whose list of Chinese phrases apparently include ‘hi’ and ‘he’s my old friend.’
“Hey,” the man says, poking Jongdae in the shoulder. Jongdae blinks, and rouses himself from his stupor. “My name. Yixing.”
“Ee-shing?” Jongdae repeats, and Yixing nods, looking satisfied.
“Yes,” Yixing says. “You are Chen.”
“What?”
“Duizhang says you are Chen.” Jongdae looks over at Kris, who he assumes is duizhang, and Kris looks back at him, raising one eyebrow slowly.
“Yeah,” Jongdae says with an exhale. “I guess I’m Chen.” Yixing smiles triumphantly and tugs on the sleeve of Jongdae’s t-shirt.
“Welcome to China,” Yixing says, and there’s a glimmer in his eyes that Jongdae thinks seems interesting.
“Thanks,” Jongdae says, and looks out at the mountains that surround the small temple. It’s a beautiful view. He thinks, for the first time since he got this assignment, sinking into that leather chair in Lee Soo Man’s office as the man played the mental games he was famous for, that this might actually be cool. “I’m happy to be here.”
Yixing drags him off, each of them carrying one of Jongdae’s suitcases, as Kris climbs back into the van to go park it somewhere. “You will stay here,” Yixing says. “With Huang Zitao.” Yixing shrugs. “Zitao is very cute.”
“Okay,” Jongdae says, tentatively, in Mandarin, and Yixing beams and gives him a thumbs up.
He guides Jongdae down steps, both of them straining under the weight of Jongdae’s bags, until they arrive at a smaller building. “It looks old,” Jongdae says. It’s not a complaint; it’s more of an observation, and Yixing seems to realize that.
“The inside is new,” Yixing replies. “Not old.”
“Okay,” Jongdae says.
“Dinner will have a bell,” Yixing says, and Jongdae nods. “Come to the front.” He gestures up toward the way they came.
“Thank you,” Jongdae says. “I mean, xie xie.”
“No problem,” Yixing says. “Until later.”
Jongdae looks around the room. It’s simple. There are no dressers or televisions. No air-conditioning unit, either. There’s one power outlet: it seems to connect out to a generator rather than to an electric line. Jongdae doesn’t imagine they have electricity up here. There are two beds. They’re more like pallets than beds, really; sort of like Korean traditional bedding. Jongdae’s is folded up. The other one, on the opposite side of the long, narrow wooden room from where Yixing had left Jongdae’s suitcases, is all in disarray, powder blue blankets more on the floor than on the pallet, and sleeping clothes lying atop a couple of small round pillows.
Jongdae’s gone back in time, then, as well as to a completely new culture. Great.
Jongdae peels off his backpack, where he’s stored his laptop, camera, and his heavy ‘Mandarin for Beginners’ book, and sets it next to his own bedding.
Jongdae is in freaking China. It hits him all at once, and so hard that it knocks the breath right out of him. China.
Jongdae’s been out of the country exactly once in his life before this, and it was to go to Thailand for his mother’s 50th birthday. They’d had a Korean tour guide, and Jongdae had been unable go on many of the outdoor trips because he’d had finals the next week and his parents had barely even let him come.
Jongdae hasn’t had many other opportunities to go anywhere; it’s one of the reasons he wanted to become a travel journalist. He wants to see more. Do more. When he’d graduated university, with a double degree in photography and journalism, Junmyeon had recruited him to SM Geographic almost immediately, and Jongdae had been happy to go work for one of the best magazines in the world.
So really, this is Jongdae’s dream, even if the circumstances are different than he’d expected. Jongdae should make the best of this trip. Learn as much as he can.
Maybe he should start with Mandarin.
He’s leaning over to unzip his backpack and collect his book when a pair of feet appear in the doorway.
Jongdae looks up, and lets go of his backpack with numb hands.
The first time Jongdae meets Huang Zitao, Huang Zitao is mostly naked, wet, and carrying a sword.
He’s not entirely sure what he had been expecting, when Yixing had told him about his roommate, but it certainly wasn’t this.
“Hi?” Jongdae squeaks, in what’s probably unintelligible Mandarin, and Huang Zitao seems confused, looking Jongdae up and down, while Jongdae tries his very best not to do the same, lest the towel slip even lower under his gaze. His chest and shoulders are glistening with water drops.
“Who are you?” Huang Zitao asks, and Jongdae knows that phrase; he’d memorized it on the plane, and practiced saying it a million times until the Chinese woman next to him had taken pity on him and corrected his pronunciation. He knows how to answer, too, but there’s a man standing ninety percent naked in the doorway holding a sword, and Jongdae can’t seem to find his voice.
The man seems unconcerned with his own partial nudity, but he seems very concerned with what Jongdae is doing in this room.
“I’m,” Jongdae says, stumbling over the words. “I’m Kim Jongdae.”
Zitao stares at him blankly, and Jongdae anxiously musses his hair with both hands. Then he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, because maybe things will be clearer without abs and dangerous weapons.
“Jongdae,” Jongdae says again, pointing at himself. He cracks open one eye, and Zitao’s gaze is solemn and, Jongdae thinks, perplexed. Jongdae sighs, defeated. “Chen. I’m Chen.”
Zitao’s expression clears. “Ah! I’m Zitao.” Jongdae watches, open-mouthed, as Zitao walks over to the other side of the room and picks up a piece of fabric that Jongdae hadn’t noticed before, and starts cleaning the blade of his sword. Now Jongdae thinks maybe the sword had been sitting in the doorway, in a sheath, when he’d come in, because the sheath, after Zitao cleans the sword and returns it, looks a bit more familiar and a lot less ominous. Jongdae watches him in silence. “Korea?”
“Yes,” Jongdae says. “Korea.”
Zitao pulls on a black shirt, and Jongdae quickly looks away as the towel hits the floor. There’s the sound of trousers being hastily pulled on. “Mandarin?” Zitao asks, and Jongdae feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns.
Up close, like this, Zitao is very tall. Jongdae leans back to look up at him.
When Jongdae had first seen Zitao in the doorway, he’d thought the other man’s features were dark and serious. But now, up close, Jongdae actually thinks he looks… soft. His eyes are kind, Jongdae notices, and he has a small, sweet smile on his face that makes him look young and innocent. “No,” Jongdae replies. “Bu hui.”
Zitao’s eyes crinkle up into half-moons, and his dark hair falls into his face. “Okay,” he says, and he seems amused, and Jongdae realizes that there isn’t much space between them. He can feel Zitao’s heat through his t-shirt, and Jongdae swallows and takes a half-step back. Zitao taps his own nose. “Tao.”
“You’re Tao?” Jongdae echoes, and Tao nods.
“Yes,” Tao says. “I’m Tao. You’re Chen.” His voice is higher than Jongdae expects, when he finally hears more than one word in a row. It sort of floats up into the space between them.
“Right,” Jongdae says, and he realizes he’s reached the end of his Mandarin. “Right.”
The dinner bell rings, and Tao’s eyes crinkle up again. “Dinner,” Tao says, and Jongdae catches the faintest hint of cedar as Tao lets his other hand fall from Jongdae’s shoulder, large callused hand dragging, just a little, along the bare skin of Jongdae’s arm.
Jongdae shivers, and swallows. “Dinner,” Jongdae repeats, careful to copy Tao’s tones. “Dinner.”
“Good,” Tao says, smile growing, eyes sparkling, and Jongdae, inexplicably, blushes.
At dinner, Jongdae ends up sitting between Tao and a fellow Korean, named Minseok.
“But you can call me Xiumin,” he says, and Jongdae stares at him.
“But your name is Minseok.”
Xiumin laughs. “No one here calls me that. It’s easier to take a Chinese name.”
“Mine is Chen,” Jongdae says woefully, and Xiumin pats him on the back.
“That’s not bad. Lu Han,” and he gestures to a doll-faced boy across the table who’s watching everything around him with a wide-eyes look of entertainment, “calls me Baozi. It’s like a dumpling.”
“That’s worse,” Jongdae agrees, and Xiumin slurps up more noodles. “So what you’re telling me is that I shouldn’t feel bad, because no one gets to keep their name.”
“No,” Lu Han says, suddenly interested in their conversation. Jongdae’s first impression had been that Lu Han was rather like a goldfish, but his gaze, now, is sharp. He’s also, Jongdae notices, listening and speaking in Korean. Lu Han points around the table. “Yixing, Zitao and I use our real names.”
“Oh,” Jongdae says, and then points down to the end of the table, where Yixing and Kris are whispering to each other. “And Kris-“
“Ah, yeah,” Lu Han says. “Kris is duizhang. It means leader,” Lu Han explains. “He keeps the temple going. This temple is run on donations. From people who study or have studied here. Your magazine donated, too.”
“Your Korean is really good,” Jongdae says, and Lu Han offers a peace sign.
“I lived there,” he says. “To study and train.”
Jongdae nods, and looks over to his left. Tao is quiet, eating and looking around the table with those wide eyes. In the dimmer light of this main room, lit only by lamps because the sun’s already mostly set, the circles under his eyes seem darker.
Tao must sense Jongdae’s gaze, because he looks up and smiles. There’s a bit of noodle on his chin.
“You have…” Chen starts to say, in Korean, but all gets in return is a blank look. He turns to Xiumin and Lu Han. “How do I…?”
Xiumin laughs. “Wow, duizhang was right; you have zero Chinese.” Lu Han raps his knuckles on the table.
“Maybe it’s good you’re rooming with Zitao,” Lu Han says. “It’ll be like immersion.”
Jongdae offers Tao a lost look, which Tao returns bemusedly, corners of his mouth twitching as they say nothing to each other, language barrier between them.
There’s a strange gentleness to Tao that Jongdae really likes; even though Tao had been holding a sword with his incredibly ripped arms when Jongdae had first seen him, Tao looks more like the type to cuddle puppies and rescue kittens than go on assassination missions.
Lu Han teaches Jongdae how to say ‘there’s noodle on your face’, and Tao laughs and wipes his chin as Jongdae fights to make the words sound remotely like the ones Lu Han had just said.
“Good job,” Tao says, in clear Mandarin. Jongdae feels like a child. “Okay now?”
“Yes,” Jongdae says, and Xiumin claps.
“A successful conversation!” Xiumin says, and Yixing and Kris are looking down at Jongdae now.
“Yay,” Jongdae says sarcastically, but he smiles, broadly, and meets everyone’s eyes. Then he takes a large bite of noodles. They taste salty, and fresh.
Tao taps him on the shoulder.
“There’s noodle on your face,” Tao says, making sure to say it exactly like Lu Han had taught it to him, and Yixing snorts as Tao looks at him eagerly to see if he understands.
“Thanks,” Jongdae says, and wipes his face, pulling his hand away with a piece of noodle that he sees when he looks down at it.
The triumphant look on Tao’s face, when he looks up again, makes something flutter in his chest.
Dear Mom,
I made it alive. Tell Kyungsoo not to worry about me, and don’t let dad put cigarettes out in my plants! It turns them colors!
Love,
Jongdae
