Chapter Text
Chan is eighteen. It’s four o’clock in the morning. He is not home, where he should be. He is in front of the Han river instead. Watching the watchers churn is some of the only peace he feels these days. It’s Changbin’s birthday today. Chan will walk to his shift at the coffee shop on the corner in a little while. He made sure to take the earliest shift he could, that way he could be home with his brothers when it counted.
He doubts either of his parents would do the same, but that thought is bitter and rough and angry. It’s too early, too important a day to be bitter and rough and angry.
Chan’s shift passes in a blur. Unimportant. Importance is Changbin at home while Chan isn’t around to play teenage gym rat with him. Importance is Minho stirring from-scratch cake batter, Seungmin staring in confusion at the buttons on the oven they’ve had for years with his head tilted at a forty-five degree angle, and Felix’s face undoubtedly covered in blue icing. Powdered sugar dusting every surface. Butter on the walls. The kitchen will likely be unsalvageable and Chan has to be there to salvage it before his siblings worry.
When Chan gets home, he isn’t expecting much. Chaos divided into smaller groups. Changbin is probably using his birthday boy privileges to bully the maknae into showing him affection. Maybe Felix and Seungmin attempting to start the cake without the eggs and cocoa powder that Chan picked up on his way home. At a stretch, Hyunjin secretively drawing a birthday card at the kitchen table, but Chan suspects he’d rather do that in his room.
He finds, instead, both of his parents are home. Surprise morphs into apprehension locked inside his ribcage. When he comes through the door, tossing out an “I’m home!” to the wilderness, there’s no one destroying the kitchen to greet him. The house is eerily quiet. Something is wrong here.
Chan puts away the eggs and wanders off to find his siblings. He checks the backyard first, but sees only Eomma pulling weeds with her headphones in. Appa is holed up in his office. He finds Jisung, Hyunjin, and Felix curled up on the floor together in Felix’s room. Minho appears engrossed in a book on his bunk but hasn’t turned the page, even though he should have finished reading it by now. Seungmin’s foot is poking out from underneath the other bunk. Jeongin is curled in a ball in the corner, head resting on his knees and looking sufficiently miserable.
What happened?
Walking into his shared room feels a little bit like entering a warzone. He doesn’t process why that is until he spies a positively seething Changbin on the top bunk, headphones in, glaring at the wall.
“Binnie?” Chan approaches. He’s sure he won’t be heard, but he doesn’t particularly feel like speaking any louder. “Bin-ah.”
“What.” Is the low, almost growled response. Chan does not say anything else. Instead, he climbs into the top bunk and pulls Changbin into a hug. Some of the coiled tension immediately loosens from the younger’s shoulders. They sit like that for a while.
“We’re going to the gym.” Is what Chan states once Changbin settles enough to pause his metal and remove his headphones. Chan slips out of the room as Changbin is getting ready.
His brothers— minus Changbin— look up at him with pathetic faces and sad eyes when he enters the room. “Does anybody want to tell me what happened while I was at work?” Chan inquires.
“Appa forgot Changbin-hyung’s birthday, he’s been working all day, and then Eomma came home, and she has people coming over, so…” Hyunjin trails off, fiddling with a hole in his jeans.
“Eomma yelled at us for trying to make the cake and not cleaning the house enough. Hyung was there. And he got mad.” Felix finishes.
“I tried to make it better with a hug—just like you would’ve, Channie-hyung— but he wouldn’t let me help.” Jeongin says dejectedly from the corner.
Modifications to his original plans are already slotting into place in Chan’s head. Chan and Changbin are going to go work out. He’ll send Minho, Seungmin, and Felix out to buy a cake if they can’t make one. Hyunjin, Jisung, and Jeongin will handle decorating one of their rooms. If they keep the door shut once they finish, Eomma won’t see it. They’ll reconvene at Changbin’s favorite restaurant. Chan communicates this plan to his siblings. He is going to make this birthday count, goddammit. If not just because he loves Changbin, then to keep the parts of him that are rough and bitter and angry at bay until he can do something about it.
And so they go to the gym and burn off some energy. Energy Chan wouldn’t ordinarily have and, in fact, did not have prior to exchanging quips with Changbin. His laugh feels like lightning running through Chan’s veins, and Chan can’t help but laugh too. They stretch first, but only because Chan makes them, and then run. Changbin runs faster and harder than Chan out of spite and misguided competition. Comes with being short, Chan supposes, but as long as his dongsaeng is happy, he can’t be bothered to care.
After the running comes a friendly pushup competition, then a situp competition, then a plank competition because Changbin must be a psychopath that wants Chan’s old bones six feet underground. And finally, panting and sweaty, they wrestle each other to the floor like puppies. Just for fun. They shower at last, and by then it’s almost time to meet the others at the restaurant.
“Hyung,” Changbin says, “Hyung, home is the other way.”
“I know,” Chan responds.
“Where are we going, then?”
“Somewhere.”
Changbin, somehow, does not figure out where they’re going or why until they walk through the doors. A chorus of “Happy birthday Changbin!” greets them as they walk up to their table. Someone (probably Felix) put an electric tealight on the cake, seeing as Chan told them they couldn’t light any candles in the restaurant. Jeongin vehemently pretends he doesn’t like it when Changbin puts him in a headlock.
After they sit down and order, Seungmin makes it a point to pester Changbin in all the ways he can think of. Changbin keeps his cool through Seungmin poking him and elbowing him while he’s trying to talk. Chan’s impressed, this level of self-control would’ve been unheard of a few months ago.
And then Seungmin starts pinching.
Changbin snaps, raises his hand like he’s going to hit Seungmin. Seungmin flinches, then relaxes when he realizes Changbin isn’t actually going to hit him. And then he starts complaining to Chan about how Changbin was about to hit him.
“Brat...” Changbin mutters under his breath. Hyunjin cuddles up to his side in the hopes of making him feel better. Minho snickers about it behind his hand. After a quiet dinner (Chan loves this particular quiet, the one where his siblings are eating and satisfied and not at each other’s throats), they sing a terrible-on-purpose rendition of Happy Birthday that certainly annoys everyone else in the restaurant and cut the cake.
It’s peaceful for all of five seconds, then Jisung smears frosting on Chan’s cheek for fun and then squawks when Chan gets him back for it. Felix’s eyes sparkle with mischief as he puts frosting on Minho’s forehead and then pretends it was Hyunjin, simply because he knew it’d get a rise out of both of them. Hyunjin gets Seungmin over Changbin’s lap as Minho stuffs his mouth with napkins. Seungmin gets Jeongin just because he can. Chan reaches across the table and gets Changbin’s nose, just so he isn’t left out. By this point, there’s more frosting on each other than there is on the cake and Chan has to start worrying about restaurant etiquette again.
Chan pays and tries not to look at the price too much. It was a lot more than he expected, but if he worries, his brothers will worry. All of them are fed and happy on the way home, and that’s what matters to Chan. When they get home, they head up to Chan’s room immediately after taking their shoes off. The energy is slightly subdued now that they’re home, where they can hear Eomma’s voice drifting through the vents.
Hyunjin, Jisung, and Jeongin definitely did a number on the room. They have to crawl underneath a sheet to get through the door. There are streamers everywhere. Lining the floor are stolen pillows from every room in the house, blankets from everyone’s beds, and whose mattress is that? Chan doesn’t know how they managed half of this. He makes a note to impose limits for next time.
They end up in a puppy pile on the floor. It’s calm and peaceful, for a while. Everyone is drowsy from their full stomachs and the excitement of the day. Evening sun drifts through the window, but thankfully, it doesn’t make the room too hot. It’s calm and quiet until Changbin feels like being a pest and starts rolling into Seungmin, who understandably fights back and is pushed into Jeongin, who tries to stand and move away from the rest of the pile when Hyunjin catches his leg and makes him fall on top of Minho, who then threatens to stuff Hyunjin’s mouth with tissues. Chan rolls to protect Felix from getting squashed by Hyunjin’s attempt to get away, then Felix starts biting and wriggles out of his hold and there is no winning with his family, is there?
They stay awake for a long time. No one wants to move rooms. Minho ends up sandwiched between Jisung and Felix in Hyunjin’s bunk. Hyunjin, Jeongin, and Seungmin end up on the floor, all touching in some way but not cuddling after Hyunjin whined about being too hot. Jeongin and Seungmin aren’t always big on cuddles anyways. Changbin and Chan are in their respective beds. The laughter has faded like the last ray of sunlight sinking below the horizon. Pleasant warmth sits in Chan’s chest, fading into a comfortable tiredness in his limbs as it sprawls through his body.
This quiet, too, is one that Chan loves. The quiet when he knows he did well, his brothers are fed, safe, and happy. Sleeping soundly because an exhaustion that didn’t come from stress.
“...Chan-hyung?” Changbin whispers.
“Yeah?” Chan whispers back.
“Thanks.”
“Always.”
Chan stays awake until everyone else is asleep. Slowly, his eyes drift closed and his brain turns off for the night. Watching the Han river is nothing compared to the peace blanketing his heart now.