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Jisung doesn’t have to check the caller ID to know exactly who was ringing him. It’s been about 10 minutes since he’d sent those words into the ether, and considering that Chenle spent most of his waking hours glued to his phone, playing games and obsessively scrolling twitter, Jisung knew that it was only a matter of time before Chenle saw the message he’d sent out.
Honestly, he was a little surprised it had taken him this long.
He stares at the screen, lit up with the extreme close-up selfie that Chenle had set as his contact photo, and seriously considers letting the call ring out. But he knows Chenle well enough to know that he’s unlikely to give up. And, the annoying little voice in Jisung’s brain whispers, hadn’t this been exactly what he’d wanted?
No sooner had Jisung had swiped the call open, his clammy fingers smearing a greasy streak across the screen, than Chenle’s quiet voice was filling his ears. “What the hell was that?”
There’s no greeting, no preamble. There’s none of the usual rise and fall to his words - they’re flat and even, each word a perfect demonstration of the self-control that had been drilled into Chenle since the day he was born. To anyone else, Chenle’s words might sound casual, disinterested; but Jisung isn’t just anyone. He knows Chenle — really knows him, and he understands the words for what they are. Chenle is an elastic band pulled taut, vibrating with barely contained panic.
But Jisung has known him for long enough that he can sense the hurricane of Chenle’s disbelief, the anger and the fear, that rages beneath the calm controlled veneer; strong enough that it seeps through the phone and hangs over them both.
Good, Jisung thinks to himself, as something rotten and ugly rears up in his chest. He hates himself for the thrill of satisfaction that runs through him at knowing that he’s the reason for the unnatural calm in Chenle’s voice. He isn’t usually like this — bitter and mean, delighting in someone else’s fear — but he’s just so tired, and it’s a sick kind of relief to know that he can still make Chenle feel anything at all.
“What was what?” Jisung asks evasively.
Down the line, he hears Chenle scoff. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,” he says. “Your message. What were you thinking?”
Jisung wants to say that he wasn’t thinking, but that would have been a lie. And Jisung’s never been a liar. Not that it even matters because Chenle doesn’t pause long enough for Jisung to answer that question, before he’s already launching into another. “What are they going to think when they see what you wrote?” Chenle demands.
The hot flush of anger pulses beneath Jisung’s skin and his ears fill with static; because ah, there it is. Right on schedule and exactly as expected.
With Chenle, it’s always been about them. What would they say? What would they think? Chenle stepping away from him; shrugging Jisung’s hands off his shoulders with pinched lips and that pointed look he only ever directs at Jisung. The way he brushes off all of Jisung’s little praises and kindnesses every time they’re in public. The way he hadn’t even reacted to the poem Jisung had written during their promotions — Jisung had presented his own heart on a silver platter, and Chenle wouldn’t even look him in the eyes. It’s a thousand stinging rejections like tiny paper cuts; each one another brick added to the wall that Chenle is building between them.
Jisung tightens his grip on the phone in his hand, the edges of it digging into his skin. “They’ll think ‘oh, look at how cute chenji are’ and ‘Jisung really loves Chenle. That’s adorable.’” Jisung says, his words deliberately slow, as if that’ll help them to sink through Chenle’s thick skull, and finally drive his point home. He takes a deep breath, exhales. “And then they’ll move on. It’s not a big deal.”
He’s so sick of Chenle’s sharp reproachful words.
He’s not a child that needs to be disciplined, and he’s been in this game almost as long as Chenle. He knows what he’s doing.
And he hasn’t done anything wrong.
“It might not be a big deal to you,” Chenle bites back, his anger finally breaking through. It flares, sudden and dangerous. “But this isn’t only about you, Jisung.”
Jisung almost chokes on the hollow laugh that tears its way through him. “Isn’t it?” he challenges.
Because at this point, Jisung is starting to wonder whether the all-powerful amorphous ‘They’ are just a convenient excuse. Chenle doesn’t seem to have any of these reservations about keeping up appearances with anyone else. His complicated rules, and incomprehensible boundaries seem to only apply to Jisung.
Chenle can gush about how cute Mark is, drape himself over Mark’s back, cling to him like a human-shaped barnacle, and it’s totally fine. Chenle can give the whole world a point-by-point list of qualities that would make Renjun or Kun the perfect boyfriend, his eyes bright with unmistakable admiration; but the smallest hint of affection on Jisung’s part and suddenly it’s as if the world is going to end, and it’s all Jisung’s fault.
“You wouldn’t have a problem with the message if Mark had been the one to write it,” Jisung says, not giving Chenle a chance to speak. Chenle always has so many words to say, and somehow he never seems to say anything at all, Jisung thinks savagely. “Tell me why this is different.”
There’s a sharp inhale of breath on the other end of the line.
It feels like an eternity before Chenle finally replies. “You know why.”
“Are you sure about that?” Jisung says viciously. “Because at this point, I’m not even sure you know why.”
Silence stretches between them - the passing seconds measured by Chenle’s uneven breathing and the pounding of Jisung’s heart.
Chenle is the one who finally breaks it. “This isn’t the right way for us to have this conversation,” he says with a sigh, and Jisung has to swallow down the hysterical laugh that bubbles up in his throat. Because of course Chenle would try to disappear the moment either of them said anything real. He’s about to say as much but Chenle cuts him off. “Can we Facetime?”
That’s… not what Jisung had expected, and stunned, he nods his head, once, twice, before he remembers that Chenle can’t actually see him. He swallows around the tightness in his throat. “Yeah, ok.”
He doesn’t get a response, only a flat beep. Jisung lowers his phone to find the call already disconnected. Seconds later, the screen lights up once more and Jisung hesitates for only a moment before he picks up.
Through the screen, Chenle’s face peers up at him from deep inside the hood of his jumper, his skin vampiric pale, almost blue in the light of his phone. Jisung’s mouth feels dry and he doesn’t know what to say, so he just worries the corner of his lip, and waits, awkward and uncertain.
A long moment passes — or maybe it’s only a few seconds — before Chenle finally speaks. “I know,” he says. He sounds tired and small, and Jisung’s heart squeezes, the anger he’d felt just seconds ago fizzling out into nothing. “I know why it’s different with you.”
Jisung frowns. He doesn’t know where this is going. “Ok?”
“But I don’t feel ready to know,” Chenle says. “It scares me.” His words crash together as he rushes to get them out, like this truth is a band-aid that needs to be ripped off.
“You’re scared of me?”
Chenle shakes his head. “No,” he says quickly, then seems to change his mind. “Yes. You do scare me. And the knowing scares me. All of it. Everything.”
“Chenle-”
“I’m working on it,” Chenle says. “I really am. But I don’t want them to figure it out before I do. And -” Chenle squeezes his eyes closed and lets out a long slow breath, like a man preparing for his execution “- if I give in to you for even a second, they will know. It’s so much, Ji, and if I stop trying to show them nothing, I’ll end up showing them everything.”
Chenle opens his eyes and looks straight at Jisung, for what seems like the first time in months. “I’m not ready for everyone to see that yet,” he says gently. “Wait for me?”
Jisung’s breath catches. Chenle’s eyes are wide and vulnerable, and Jisung wishes he could reach through the screen and pull him into a hug — even though he knows Chenle would never allow himself to be coddled like that.
“I can’t wait forever,” Jisung says, his voice breaking. It’s not quite the truth - he’d probably wait an eternity for Chenle — but he knows that’s just as unhealthy as whatever Chenle’s been doing up until this point.
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Chenle tells him.
He barely has a chance to finish his sentence before Jisung is nodding furiously. “I’ll wait,” he says. “As long as you want me to.”
Colour rises on Chenle’s pale cheeks. He looks at Jisung, then suddenly drops his gaze, unable to meet his eyes. The flush creeps down his neck “I wish your knee was better already,” he mumbles. “I miss you.”
Then his face disappears from view, and the call goes dead.
Jisung’s mouth parts in surprise, but the tightness in his chest loosens, replaced by something bright and warm.
A smile tugs at his lips.
Jisung doesn’t even try to stop it.