Work Text:
“Did you ever think maybe you shouldn’t write every song you make about Baekhyun?”
Chanyeol casually stirs his latte with what looks like a soup spoon as Jongdae chokes on his americano and glares at him weakly from behind his laptop, taking the earbud out of his ear from when they were listening to the track Chanyeol finished mixing the night before. Every song he writes is definitely not about Baekhyun.
“I resent the accusation that every song I write is about him, because it isn’t,” Jongdae points the headphone at Chanyeol in what he hopes is a confident and somewhat threatening manner. This is not the talk he wants to have at seven in the morning in starbucks. “I write about plenty of things….lots of stuff. Stuff that isn’t Baekhyun.”
His defense sounded somewhat better in his head, he will admit.
“Because that is super convincing. I’m just saying, it’s a suggestion,” Chanyeol says, and his eyebrows raise like he doesn’t appreciate Jondae flailing his own earbuds in his face. Jongdae resents that as well. “Maybe you should just like, go plant one on him or something so you can stop writing all these pining love songs. They’re starting to make me feel lonely and I’m not even single.”
“You will be soon if I tell Kyungsoo it was actually you that spilled all that pasta on his very white couch last year,” Jongdae grumbles, scrolling through the tracklist he and Chanyeol have built up to verify that yes not every song is about his roommate that may or may not be terribly in love with. “Then we can be lonely together.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Chanyeol sputters as Jongdae scrolls, aiming a poor attempt at a kick to Jongdae’s ankle with his flailing sim limbs that Jongdae moves out of the way of easily. “The only thing worse than being alone is being alone with you, Kim Jongdae.”
Jongdae would normally have something witty to say to that, but as he reads through the tracks he realizes that yes, actually i. i will be waiting and iii. loud loneliness were written after Baekhyun went on a few dates with some guy from tinder who was not only taller than Jongdae but had the nerve to have dimples in both cheeks too.
He’s never been happier to see a man go back to China.
He shoves down his innate pettiness and makes his way further down the tracks.
ii. my heart flutters when i see you was written after he had woken up after three hours of sleep to a very post hangover Baekhyun with eyeliner smudged halfway down his cheeks grinning at him in the too bright morning light and smoothing back Jongdae’s bangs before pulling him up to drag him to their favorite post drinking diner. Despite his non existent tolerance, hangovers have always hit Jongdae harder, and Baekhyun always orders for both of them with a smile, stealing Jongdae’s bacon when he thinks he isn’t looking and Jongdae forgets to be mad when Baekhyun smiles wide and licks the grease from his lips.
iv. this is cute, you are cute written after Baekhyun finally gets a job offer to do graphic design for exodus magazine, jumping around their apartment and spinning Jongdae with such a force that they both go tumbling under the dining room table, Jongdae’s head still spinning as the sparkles in Baekhyun’s eyes threaten to supernova in front of Jongdae’s very eyes, and he had to hug Baekhyun to his chest to keep from kissing him.
v. feelings painstakingly written with care to not jostle Baekhyun while he slept against Jongdae’s shoulder during one of their Thursday movie nights, close enough that Jongdae can see the fan of individual short lashes on his cheeks, the mole that sits right above his lip, the way Baekhyun’s hands with nails bitten short curled just barely against Jongdae’s sweater.
Fuck.
“Fuck, every song I write is about Baekhyun,” He groans into his hands and Chanyeol’s foot finally makes contact with Jongdae’s ankle at the same time as he hand thumps on Jongdae’s shoulder in what is probably sympathy. It gives Jongdae some mixed emotions, but his irritation at having to confront his high school level emotions overrides it.
He doesn’t think he should be blamed though, Baekhyun’s existence is basically asking to have songs written about it.
“Well I’m glad you skipped through all the stages of denial to get to acceptance there buddy,” Chanyeol continues thumping until Jongdae grabs for Chanyeol’s hand with the intent of breaking his wrist. It doesn’t work, and he’s met with Chanyeol’s blinding grin. “Everyone loves an indie musician with a love story, but I’m not sure if I would have been able to handle another long artsy boo hoo fest when we have a deadline for these. Even your other client work was getting a little bit wangsty.”
“Don’t hold back now, tell me how you really feel,” Jongdae scoffs as he taps at the keyboard, rearranging his arrangement notes and deadlines on the cute post it app that Baekhyun somewhat forced him to install when they shared a laptop in college. “I’ll do my best not to give you a whiny angst fest for the last track.”
Chanyeol hums in what Jongdae assumes is agreement as he goes back to twirling the spoon, and Jongdae pauses when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. Chanyeol starts breaking down the latest mix he’s been finishing up for the artist they’ve been working for, and Jongdae nods like he’s listening while he discreetly checks his phone.
His stealth skills must be the same as they were in college, that is to say nonexistent, because he feels one of Chanyeol’s inhumanly long legs poking at his vulnerable ankles again, but reads the text anyway.
It’s from Baekhyun, because of course it is, decorated with at least seven emotes and four typos characteristic of Baekhyun when he’s texting on the job. Jongdae can’t stop the fond smile that pulls at his lips even as Chanyeol’s converse knock his ankle sharply.
“Let me guess, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol rolls his eyes as Jongdae taps out a reply on his keyboard and returns Chanyeol’s kick twice as hard. “I’m going to tell him to stop texting you during working time and that you’re madly in love with him if you don’t start paying attention to what actually pays the bills here. Honestly it’s a miracle he hasn’t figured it out already, you two have been acting like you’ve been married for years anyway, you’re both idiots.”
“Takes one to know one,” Jongdae says as he rolls his eyes and pockets his phone again, satisfied now that he’s sent an appropriate reply string of emojis and cat faces Baekhyun’s way. You know it’s love when you’re actually willing to use emojis.
“This is painful to watch. Just go home and tell him hey, I’ve been in love with you for years actually and it makes me suck at my job now, let’s make out so I can stop writing angst fests and keep the electricity on and the rent paid in the process,” Chanyeol slaps his hands together, soup spoon flying behind the next table over in the process. Jongdae is still unclear on the spoon’s origins as a very tired barista,Sehun according to his nametag, looks on with disdain. “It’s foolproof.”
“I will never understand how Kyungsoo finds you attractive,” Jongdae mumbles, trying to keep the smile off his face because even in the face on being forced into trying to do something about his feelings he does really like Chanyeol. But if he isn’t riffing on him then he just isn’t doing his job correctly as The Best Friend™. “I thought he had better taste.”
“Better taste than you clearly, you know Baekhyun used to actually eat those entire five pound bags of gummy bears before all his exams right?”
“I know, it was adorable. Even when he threw up all the green ones on my shoes.”
“You’re a lost cause.”
…
Baekhyun is dazzling from the moment they meet.
He hits Jongdae’s life like a hurricane from the second he all but kicks down the door to their dorm, two large suitcases behind him as he loudly announces his presence as Jongdae’s roommate and soon to be new best friend with a grin so big that Jongdae thinks he could reach in and pull out Baekhyun’s teeth if he wanted to.
He doesn’t want to actually do that, that’s weird, but Baekhyun is kind of weird too so Jongdae figures it fits.
They fit, in fact, and after a few months Jongdae struggles to remember a time B.B.B.H (Before Byun Baekhyun) (Baekhyun says that it’s way too many B’s, but Jongdae doesn’t care) and he finds that he doesn’t want to anyway.
Somewhere in the middle of the all nighters spent flopped over each other in the library, arms thrown over each other’s shoulders and laughter loud barks in the night as they stumble home from terrible frat parties and the blinding brightness of Baekhyun’s smile directed at him he starts believing that while the Earth may circle the sun but he circles Baekhyun, and he may just be a little stupidly in love.
“It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks,” Baekhyun of his memories says softly, moment still tattooed behind Jongdae’s eyes as he sees himself in their room with his head in between his knees somewhere in the middle of sophomore year when he made the switch from engineering to music, his mother’s yelling still echoing in his ears. Baekhyun’s hair was a hideous orange that hung too low over his eyes, but Jongdae can only ever remember how painfully earnest Baekhyun’s eyes were. “You have to do what you want, you know? You don’t need anyone but yourself to validate it. But if it helps, you’ll always have me.”
That night, long after Baekhyun had coaxed Jongdae into marathoning terrible horror films and spent half the time burning his palms into the skin of Jongdae’s thighs with how hard he clutched the fabric of his jeans with every jumpscare, he writes a beatless track called i just want to be happy to the sounds of Baekhyun’s soft breathing beside him.
And six years later he’s still here, writing his feelings out for Baekhyun on paper that now get laid out on the radio to every person in the known universe except for the one person who should actually hear it.
Current Jongdae rests his head on his knees on the subway ride home.
Double fuck.
….
“Why is this so hard?”
Jongdae looks balefully at the notebook in his lap like it’s personally offended him. Silence answers him, because notebooks are not capable of responses, and he sighs before closing his eyes and focusing on the music between his ears.
He has his headphones clamped firmly over his head as the demo Chanyeol sent him after he’d left their meeting plays on loop, and it’s not like he’s counting but he’s pretty sure it’s played a total of 54.75 times by now. He sets down his pen from where it has been rather uselessly drawing small stars over lyrics that don’t feel right, scratch marks over the others that have also been eliminated from the running of Jongdae’s lyrical struggle session.
He is definitely not going to write this song with any pining for Baekhyun in mind.
He grapples for his cup of coffee on Baekhyun’s desk and squints through his glasses at the clock, making out two thirty in the bright red numbers before taking a long gulp and grimacing at how cold it’s become.
The uncomfortable fabric of Baekhyun’s desk chair scratches at his legs where his shorts ride up, and Jongdae takes a moment to slip the headphones off his ears and take in the quiet of the room in hopes for a sudden lightning bolt of inspiration to strike him.
He likes writing in Baekhyun’s room more than his, where the walls feel less claustrophobic when he’s on a time crunch like he is now, with t minus seven hours until he has to present Chanyeol with some kind of lyrical genius progress or suffer a very unpleasant morning of nagging and general loudness that will probably lead to them being kicked out of the starbucks they’re meeting at.
It has been known to happen before.
Baekhyun himself is gone for the night, Jongdae having barely caught him on his way in as Baekhyun left for the night, eyes lined dark and leather jacket hung loosely over his shoulders as he pulled on Jongdae’s ear on his way out the door before yelling something about his co-worker’s birthday at Jongdae and for him to lock the door behind him.
Jongdae may or may not have stood at the door staring dumbly for five minutes after that. It’s just for him and God to know.
He’s been trying all night to write something to go along with Chanyeol’s melody, something that isn’t brought on by some memory of Baekhyun, and it’s somewhat exactly as hard as he figured it would be. He wonders if he should take Chanyeol’s advice and just dip kiss Baekhyun as soon as he gets home and take the possible rejection so he can write this stupid song already.
Deep deep down, he doesn’t think he’d get rejected at all, and somehow the glinting prospect of his own happiness is even more daunting.
He spins around in Baekhyun’s desk chair and takes in the perfectly made sheets of Baekhyun’s bed, his laptop still emitting a dull blue from where its plugged in to charge on top of Baekhyun’s precariously stacked graphic design books.
There’s pictures of the two of them taped all over the walls from when Baekhyun began his ongoing polaroid phase, from their first day of sophomore year (Baekhyun’s hair that heinous bright orange from a failed bleach job, cheek to cheek with Jongdae and peace sign nearly obscuring the frame) to when they went to Japan with Kyungsoo and Chanyeol for graduation (the four of them captured at dinner through the virtue of Chanyeol’s long arms, Kyungsoo’s mouth stretched into a smile at Baekhyun and Jongdae’s mouths stuffed full of takoyaki).
The one hanging from Baekhyun’s desk is Jongdae’s favorite though, of him and Baekhyun from when they were at Baekhyun’s parents house last year, Mongryong stretched across both their laps with tiny paws sticking up in the air, and Baekhyun’s grin at Jongdae is positively stunning.
He doesn’t really think about it when he scribbles out it’s three am and i can’t stop thinking about you on the top of a fresh page of notebook paper, fitting the headphones back over his ears.
It feels right.
“Chanyeol isn’t going to like this,” He mumbles to himself with a small chuckle as he hums along to the beats and mulls over more options for the bridge in his head, bobbing his head along and thinking that he can still salvage that, there won’t be any sad sounding pining at all beyond the title.
He nearly jumps out of his skin when Baekhyun’s voice cuts through the music, coming very close to an absolutely graceful fall from the desk chair before Baekhyun steadies him with a sharp laugh and somewhat stumbling palms.
“Chanyeol isn’t going to like what? Your face?” Baekhyun says and pats Jongdae’s cheek with a quick grin before taking a step and inelegantly face planting on his bed. Jongdae rolls his eyes but tugs his headphones off the rest of the way anyway, picking up his notebook and sitting next to Baekhyun on his bed as he rolls over on his back. “I don’t know why you’re always insisting on doing your work in my room, what was the point of getting a two bedroom apartment even then.”
Baekhyun’s eyes are tired but clear enough that Jongdae knows he must have sobered up on the walk home, eyeliner smudged out underneath his eyes like it always does when Baekhyun doesn’t use any setting spray. Jongdae wants to run his thumb under it and brush the smokiness off of Baekhyun’s cheekbones, but he doesn’t, running a hand through Baekhyun’s dark hair instead and smiling when Baekhyun leans into the touch.
“It’s just easier to think in here,” Jongdae shrugs as he twists some of Baekhyun’s product stiff hair around his finger, tugging at it until Baekhyun slaps his hand away. This is familiar. “Go shower, you smell like our college days.”
Baekhyun doesn’t bother replying to that, rolling his eyes even as a smile tugs at his lips as he abandons his jacket on the bed and picks up scattered sweats from the floor before ambling off to the bathroom. Jongdae watches him go with what Chanyeol would call hearts in his eyes, letting himself fall back on Baekhyun’s bed again heavily, holding the offensive notebook above his head and staring.
The track still plays from where his headphones rest around his neck, and Jongdae can hear the echoes of it mixing with how Baekhyun’s voice carries from the shower as he sings the latest SNSD song slightly off key. It makes a strange mix, but Jongdae likes it, scribbling out a more concrete chorus and twirling the pen around in his hand in satisfaction.
He sets his notebook down on his lap and takes off his glasses before closing his eyes, humming the verse to himself in the stark quiet of Baekhyun’s room, in Baekhyun’s bed, Baekhyun’s leather jacket that smells like smoke and Baekhyun’s cologne still laying next to him.
Baekhyun, Baekhyun, Baekhyun. His name echoes in Jongdae’s mind like a prayer, and he wonders how he’s supposed to be able to write about anything else when Baekhyun has become all he knows.
“It’s three am and I can’t stop thinking about you? That’s a real mouthful.”
For the second time that night Jongdae finds himself startled by Baekhyun, nearly kneeing him in the crotch at the speed he sits up and pulls his notebook against his chest, jutting his lips out in a way that he hopes hides the furious embarrassment on his face.
“Are you writing something new with Chanyeol? For that indie singer? It certainly sounds made for a hipster,” Baekhyun says with a raised eyebrow, face wiped bare of makeup and hair still wet, bangs drooping low on his forehead in a way that makes him look not a day over eighteen. He looks softer like this, and Jongdae twists his hands harder around his notebook. He isn’t ready to play fifty questions with Baekhyun fresh out of the shower. “Who are you writing about?”
“Is it me?”
Jongdae can’t speak for a moment and just looks at Baekhyun like he grew a second head, Baekhyun’s serious expression slowly cracking into a laugh. If Baekhyun doesn’t know then Jongdae wonders if he should even tell him, or if they’re both as stupid as Chanyeol says they are.
“Of course I’m writing about you,” Jongdae sighs eventually, and he feels like his world is starting to tilt on a farther axis and there is nothing but gravity pulling him down the slippery slope. He’s always been good at saying what’s on his mind, but it all feels like a jumble falling out now. He doesn’t want to look at Baekhyun. “Since when do I ever write about anything else? Chanyeol said no one is going to want to work with us if I don’t stop being angsty about you.”
Baekhyun fixes him with a long look that Jongdae can’t decipher, caught somewhere in between certainty and not, and he sighs as he kneels one knee on the edge of the bed, shower warm skin resting against Jongdae’s thigh.
Jongdae waits for him to laugh again, but he doesn’t.
“Well, it’s not three anymore,” Baekhyun says instead of addressing anything Jongdae has said, voice soft as Jongdae feels rather than sees the way that he unclenches Jongdae’s hands from his notebook, setting it down on the comforter with Jongdae’s pen rolling onto the floor to likely never be seen again. Baekhyun’s hands still cover Jongdae’s, like he thinks he’s going to run away if he spooks him too much.“Are you still thinking about me?”
“You’re going to be so tired in the morning,” Jongdae mumbles, glaring red numbers somewhere above Baekhyun’s shoulder telling him that it’s closer to four now and he knows Baekhyun has to be awake in four hours. He swallows hard when Baekhyun’s blunt nails scrape over the back of his hands to circle his wrists. “I never stop thinking about you.”
He feels so sappy and disgusting that he wonders if Baekhyun will hit him, but he doesn’t, just moves his other leg to carefully rest on the other side of Jongdae’s thighs, leaning back until he’s sitting on Jongdae’s knees. His thumbs press into the center of Jongdae’s wrists, and Jongdae thinks his head might just spin off.
“Jongdae,” Baekhyun says slowly and carefully, like if he doesn’t then Jongdae won’t understand what he’s saying. Considering the way his brain is short circuiting currently, Jongdae thinks that may be a very real possibility. “If you don’t kiss me right now, you’re an idiot.”
“I know you are but what am I,” Jongdae can’t stop himself from babbling out as his whole being lurches forward at Baekhyun’s bright laugh cutting through the moment. He decides he likes this better anyway, heart jumping up into his throat when he pulls Baekhyun forward by his wrists to plant one on him, as Chanyeol would say.
Jongdae’s teeth knock against Baekhyun’s with the force of Jongdae’s yank, and Baekhyun laughs again before pulling his hands from Jongdae’s grip in favor of sliding them back into Jongdae’s hair, thumbs resting under Jongdae’s jaw when he leans in to kiss him again, slower this time.
Baekhyun tastes like the mint of his toothpaste, lips soft and sweet against Jongdae’s as Jongdae’s melted brain tries to figure out what to do with his hands before settling on the curve of Baekhyun’s hips, heat radiating out through his thin t-shirt.
His heart jumps straight from his throat into Baekhyun when Baekhyun sucks at Jongdae’s bottom lip, drawing out a long hum from Jongdae as he pulls back, nearly sending them both to the floor as Jongdae leans them forward to chase Baekhyun’s mouth.
“You’re an idiot is what you are,” Baekhyun says with a grin, a little bit breathless as he lets Jongdae kiss the corners of his mouth, “do you have any idea how long I was waiting for this,” the tip of his nose, “you’re just impossible to figure out sometimes, you know?” the apples of Baekhyun’s cheeks, until Baekhyun can’t stop the grin on his face, knocking their foreheads together softly and sliding his hands through Jongdae’s hair.
“Chanyeol said I was an idiot too, why do I get this disrespect from everyone,” The way Baekhyun’s hands toy with the ends of Jongdae’s hair make it difficult for to concentrate on anything else besides how much he wants to kiss Baekhyun, now that he knows that he can. Unless this is all some fever dream, in which case he is going to be very disappointed when he wakes up. He might cry.
Baekhyun’s fingers move to pull at Jongdae’s ears, bringing him back to reality like he knows that Jongdae is thinking too hard, and Jongdae tightens his hands on his hips when Baekhyun slides closer on Jongdae’s lap.
“Less talking about Chanyeol, more kissing,” Baekhyun says against Jongdae’s mouth, swallowing up his laugh with more kisses than Jongdae can count, and Jongdae pushes anything but the feeling of Baekhyun’s mouth on his somewhere out in space.
Jongdae’s long discarded glasses nearly become a casualty of war as Baekhyun rolls them over on his bed, legs tangled up with Jongdae’s in a way that is both familiar and not, Jongdae watching with a grin as Baekhyun rolls his eyes and tosses the offensive glasses on the floor somewhere with Jongdae’s long lost pen.
Finding his glasses, pen, sanity and everything else involving higher functioning levels of his brain are something to be dealt with after his alarm goes off, Jongdae decides. Right now he’s content to wrap his arms around Baekhyun’s waist and let the silence become comfortable as the desperate need to sleep wars with the desperate need to be aware of everything happening right now.
“I think about you too, you know. All the time I mean.” Baekhyun’s voice is soft in the air between them, and Jongdae doesn’t reply in favor of kissing Baekhyun again just because he can, slide of their lips slow and easy as morning quietly begins to break.
Left in the silence of Baekhyun’s slow breaths beside him again as he falls asleep pillowed on Jongdae’s shoulder moments later, Jongdae thinks it sounded a little bit like i love you too.
...
Chanyeol has his soup spoon in action again, this time ruining the latticework on his carmel macchiato, but Jongdae can’t bring himself to care about the origins of it this time.
“You look like you got punched in the eyes,” Chanyeol says, eyeing Jongdae’s huge strawberries and cream frappuccino with some small amount of disdain, like it isn’t the pot calling the kettle black. In Jongdae’s defense, he needs all the sugar he can get to stay awake right now, though the barista gave him a look of similar disdain when he ordered it. Or maybe that’s his default expression. “And the mouth. Baek didn’t go easy on you at all did he?”
“Nope, it was awesome,” Jongdae says, unable to stop the smile threatening to break his face as he thinks about waking up to a mouthful of Baekhyun’s hair, Baekhyun’s eyes barely cracking open when Jongdae disentangled them and went on the great hunt for his notebook and glasses. “Shouldn’t you be happy about the decline of the angst? Are you even reading my lyrics?”
It feels a bit surreal, but he can still feel Baekhyun’s smile against his mouth, the way his nose scrunched up at Jongdae’s morning breath but he still let him steal a last kiss at the door, a soft see you later, dae whispered against his temple still bouncing between his ears.
“Of course I’m happy for you, for both of you,” Chanyeol rolls his eyes, Jongdae’s used and abused notebook sitting in front of him as Jongdae nurses his vat of sugar. Jongdae resents this judgement of his beverage, Kyungsoo would never slander him like this if he were here. “But it leaves an important question to be answered.”
Jongdae raises a brow as Chanyeol types away at his laptop, humming along with the track, and jumps a bit as his phone goes off rapid fire in his back pocket.
“Does this mean you’re only going to write sappy love songs now?”
Jongdae just laughs and checks his phone, emojis in Baekhyun’s text now upped to maximum levels, a record seven typos in what he translates out to mean you should take me out to dinner tonight, i don’t want everyone to know i kiss before the first date even happens.
Chanyeol’s shoes are knocking at his ankles again, but Jongdae doesn’t care because even this is perfect.
He’s happy.
He’s so, so happy.