Chapter Text
If anyone ever asked for a full history of The House on Rainbow Lane, Chenle had always thought that he would be the best person to tell it.
That thought is supported simply by the fact that amongst the seven people that had made a home here over the past five years, Chenle had been the very last to arrive. That meant he could recite everything from his mind bank of stories and backstories, getting most of the important details down without going on any of the irrelevant tangents that the others who’ve lived there longer definitely would. He could tell the gist of his friends’ stories—all six of them—without having actually lived in them enough to form some overly sentimental attachment to any one detail. He prided himself on it, because the basic details were already complicated enough as is.
The house itself is a two-storey, three-bedroom, detached townhouse located in the suburbs south of Seoul, with a white shingled roof and small garden and even a fenced-off front porch. Chenle’s the only one who doesn’t actually live there—his own house is in the same neighborhood, only a few streets away, and a little too big considering barely anyone is ever home besides Chenle and his puppy, Daegal. His brother, Kun, is an airline pilot who’s almost always either flying or spending his time at his fiancé’s apartment in Seoul, and their parents flew back to continue working in Shanghai the second that Kun graduated university.
So, naturally, he spends most of his time now at his friends’ shared house, situated right in the middle of the humble street called Rainbow Lane. Affectionately nicknamed the Dream House by its inhabitants, it’s been Chenle’s haven for the past two years, making his days a little less boring and his life a little less lonely.
Technically speaking, the house belonged to Jeno and his older brother, Doyoung. It was never an easy story to tell, and Chenle still sometimes can’t wrap his head around how all of it suddenly led up to the six-person household that they had turned into, but the easiest thing to do in his brain was always take it step by step.
First things first: Jeno and Doyoung’s parents died when Jeno was fourteen, and Doyoung eighteen. Before everything happened, they were fairly well-off, enough to have their big house and plenty of other things at the snap of a finger. Unfortunately, and as comical as it may have seemed, their parents had lost their lives at sea on a big cruise ship—like rich people in movies always do, Chenle had thought—but this time, it wasn’t a movie. Doyoung and Jeno were living in it. Chenle can only imagine that it must have been pure, pure hell.
Chenle knows a few things about law and money and fine print, and so it wasn’t a surprise to find out that when none of their family members’ bodies had turned up in the search to confirm their deaths, Doyoung and Jeno couldn’t inherit anything. With their only extended family having also died in the shipwreck, the siblings had to live off of only their savings and any strokes of luck that came their way, along with Doyoung’s desperate attempts at finding workarounds with their family lawyer. Doyoung had to cancel his enrollment in university to work so he could support Jeno through high school, and Jeno, young as he was, had to grow up a little faster than planned.
The only thing they were left with was the house—after Doyoung enlisted the help of one of his cousins to get the lawyer to pull some strings for them both—and with a roof over their heads, they were all thankful enough. Doyoung worked hard and Jeno pushed himself in high school for scholarship-worthy grades, and that year was spent adjusting to a new, much more difficult lifestyle for them both.
That was all that there was to say about it, because a year later, Doyoung moved out and Renjun moved in. Well, Doyoung still technically lived in the house—even until now, he had a lot of his things still in drawers and cabinets in a shared bedroom with Jeno upstairs—but he was mostly living in his boyfriend, Taeyong’s, apartment in Seoul. At the time, it was closer to the two jobs he was working. At present, it’s closer to his one job that he kept, and also the university he’s been studying at on a scholarship, ever since Jeno got into a different university and secured for himself a scholarship of his own.
Safe to say, Chenle more than salutes the two brothers for getting to where they are now.
Renjun’s story was simple and straightforward when he had told it to Chenle: he moved into the house with Jeno at the tender age of fifteen, because his parents kicked him out when they found out he was gay. Renjun had always been nonchalant about it, clearly not really wanting to say much—which, to Chenle, was perfectly fine. Renjun seemed okay enough as he was, doing his best to pull his weight at the house since he didn’t have anyone to support him enough to continue school like Jeno did. Doyoung was apparently reluctant to let him stay at first, not exactly secure about their situation as it was even without Renjun in the picture, but he wasn’t going to let the kid live on the streets. And Jeno’s known him from school since they were kids, so it was a common known fact even to the elder brother that Renjun’s parents were bigoted assholes.
Since Chenle’s been at the house, he’s seen Renjun do all sorts of things from cleaning to reading books to scolding Jeno and/or Jaemin whenever they played games instead of studying. He also did art commissions through his Instagram account, which he’d shown to Chenle after months of prodding. They had grown a lot closer than expected, talked a lot in their mother tongue about anything and everything, safe from the prying ears of all the other boys. It was a bit of a surprise, and they do clash a little from time to time, but Renjun’s always been kind, and it was almost kind of obvious to Chenle even before he was briefed on Dream House history that Renjun had been there the longest next to Jeno.
It wasn’t a secret that Renjun was good at art. Besides his digital stuff, everyone sometimes sees him leave the house with a bag over his shoulder filled with painting supplies, and he always notifies Jeno when he gets back that they have some more money in their savings now. No one knew nor questioned what he was getting into until Chenle did, because duh, that was sketchy as hell, but Renjun laughed it off and told him he had gotten some gigs painting murals on the walls of some new small businesses opening up in Seoul. It’s the least I can do, he said, just to help out at the house. They did have six people living there, after all, and Renjun was keen on doing something since he couldn’t be at school.
Jaemin, on the other hand, was what Chenle could only call a hot mess. And that’s if he was being polite. Still, with joking aside, he did care for the other boy. He just found his habits quite… strange.
From what he can put together, Jaemin had also been friends with Jeno and Renjun since the beginning of time. Jaemin goes to the same university that Jeno does, and it was the same one that Chenle was going to be a freshman at, too. Having known Jaemin a couple years before this, Chenle thinks it checks out that Jaemin gets into a lot of trouble at school—because, concerningly, Jaemin’s always been the type to be nonchalant when he sits next to someone on the couch with a bruise on his face or bleeding knuckles. Whoever’s sitting next to him always has to take a second look before scolding him and then patching him up, and Jaemin always acts like it’s no big deal.
Well, Chenle doesn’t know if Jaemin is the one who starts fights or if he’s only the victim of them, but it is a big deal either way. Chenle has had to stop himself multiple times from just downright asking Jaemin if he was crazy; Jeno certainly makes it clear that he thinks so, with how frantic and worried he gets whenever it happens. It doesn’t happen anymore—at least not as often as it used to—but everyone knows they have a bit of silent agreement to keep Jaemin close, to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Because, whether Jaemin likes it or not, it doesn’t only cause problems for him.
Jeno had been worried from the get-go about letting another person live in the house after already splitting his allowance to share the place with Renjun. But when it came to Jaemin, even Doyoung was adamant about letting him stay. From what Jaemin had personally told Chenle, he had stayed on and off at the house even before Renjun moved in, just on the nights when he needed to get away from his parents who were, to say the least… not nice. It was around the same time that Haechan had been staying temporarily, and he’s told Chenle lots of stories too.
Stories about how often Jaemin came to their doorstep bruised and bleeding. Stories about Jeno needing to calm him through bouts of not being able to breathe. Stories about Jaemin’s parents having an especially heated fight one evening, the three of them at the house having to call Doyoung in the middle of the night so they could drive him to a hospital. Stories of how when Jaemin ended up there for two weeks, literally fighting for his life, it was the last fucking straw.
Chenle honestly doesn’t know what kind of arrangements were made for Jaemin to still have kept schooling after that, because god knows neither Jeno nor Doyoung nor Renjun had the means, nor did anyone else at the house. But Chenle doesn’t question it, because Jaemin does his best. Most of the time. And they’d always forgive him even when he didn’t.
Donghyuck was certainly always nice about it with Jaemin, true to his nature. Chenle didn’t know what to expect from him when they first met—which was quite a story, but one for later—but he did not disappoint. They all call him Haechan, at his stubborn insistence, and they all indulge because it suits him. Full sun. Their brightest, loudest ray of light.
As said, Haechan was staying for bursts of time at the Dream House at around the same time that Jaemin was. He was related to Jeno and Doyoung, in some way, shape, or form that Chenle still cannot comprehend until now—either because the others didn’t quite understand either, or the ones that do just never talk about it. From what Chenle can guess, Haechan and his half-brother Taeil were the only family Doyoung and Jeno had left, Taeil being the one who helped them acquire the house, and he had left Haechan to his cousins when he needed to make some trips for his new job prospects. When Taeil got a job offer to manage a hotel in Busan, Haechan was given the option to move with him or stay at the house with Jeno—and so, here he was now.
Haechan, unlike Jaemin and Renjun, wasn’t much of an imposition on the household at the time, because Taeil still sent in money for whatever he needed—but Chenle learned quickly enough that the thing about Haechan was that he needed a lot more than normal. And Taeil, quite like Doyoung, could only provide so much.
Haechan had to stop high school sometime around his third year, apparently, because of a disorder he was born with. Essential tremor, ET for short. Chenle noticed it quickly after he had been informed, picking up on the slightest tremble of Haechan’s hands when he was picking something up or holding something for too long. He didn’t really let it get to him on most days, except when it was really, really bad, but it did render him unable to keep studying, even in special ed, when the tremors got marginally worse. More than that, Taeil was barely managing to pay for his meds and doctor’s appointments alongside school which was only stressing Haechan out anyway, so they decided to pull him out. He studies with Mark and Jisung at the house nowadays, at Renjun’s insistence, or he at least tries to. God knows he’s more distracted by Mark than anything, but none of them mind because they like seeing him happy, adore it when their full sun shines bright.
Mark—well, Chenle adores Mark. He’s kind, easy to talk to, and laughs at all of Chenle’s jokes. Chenle thinks—and he means this lovingly—that Mark is quite possibly the most normal person in their group, and he’s always a breath of fresh air. He’s steady, reliable, strong when things get heavy. Jeno keeps them in check most days, but it’s Mark who does it when Jeno can’t.
Like Haechan and Jaemin, Mark had been coming to the Dream House since long ago to hang out with Jeno from time to time, even before his and Doyoung’s parents had passed away. Mark’s parents’ house was far from Jeno’s neighborhood, though, always having to be driven there or take the subway whenever he wanted to drop by and see his friends. He had only moved in permanently when he was about to enter university, having his eyes set on studying at the satellite campus that was opening up near the house’s neighborhood. His parents gave him the go signal after some reluctance (because do you really think you can live with that many other people, Mark?), but he’d been doing just fine so far, and Jeno was silently thankful they had one more person who actually had an allowance to contribute to their finances. (Not that Jeno ever voiced that concern—but it’s easy enough for Chenle to predict that it was never easy figuring out how to keep supporting a household that somehow kept growing bigger, without Jeno having to make do with meager rations or stress out his already jaded older brother.)
And then there was Jisung. Chenle’s closest friend among them all, and yet always the most mysterious.
Jisung didn’t talk much. No, actually—Jisung doesn’t talk at all. When Chenle first stepped foot in the dream house, he had chalked it down to Jisung just being the shy type, quiet and observant. Not that he wasn’t any of those things—it was definitely a bit toughh to get him to open up. But Chenle did it best, to his own surprise and to everyone else’s. It was simply a bit of a challenge to start.
Chenle picked up on it quickly enough, seeing Jisung making fluid motions with his hands whenever he was spoken to, instead of speaking back. Everyone watched him intently all the time, making sure to catch what he was conveying, and it fascinated Chenle as much as it puzzled him. Everyone else at the house at the time seemed to understand Jisung’s sign language, and a few had mastered signing back at the same time as they spoke even though Jisung could hear them perfectly well. At the very least, everyone had been learning, and Chenle kept up quickly enough and asked if they could teach him as well.
When it came to learning how to sign, Chenle worked hard at trying to catch up with the rest of them. He had actually spent a lot of his first months at the Dream House just learning it with Jisung since he was always just at the house anyway, the younger typing on Chenle’s phone or Mark’s laptop to communicate the first few times. Chenle hadn’t intended it, but it was how the two of them got close. Everyone, especially Haechan, had even complained at the time that Chenle had hogged all of Jisung’s availability and attention since the moment they met. Chenle enjoyed every second of it, loved learning Jisung’s language and exchanging stories along the way, and Jisung soaked up the attention like a sponge. So it seems it was a natural arrangement, the way Chenle and Jisung found each other and stuck together like glue.
In his two years of knowing the six of them, though, the one part of their history that Chenle still doesn’t know is anything about Jisung before he lived in the house. Chenle doesn’t know why Jisung can’t speak; he does have a voice, Chenle’s heard small grunts or noises of surprise escaping from the other boy from time to time, so Chenle is positive there must be something there to unearth. He doesn’t ask Jisung about it, because he doesn’t know if it would be okay, and he doesn’t ask anyone else either because he has a feeling he’s not supposed to. And that maybe even they don’t really know.
The ones that do know are Jeno and Haechan—that much Renjun had informed him of. It seems that everyone had also been confused when Haechan first took Jisung to the house; a friend from school, apparently, when Haechan still went. Chenle doesn’t know the exact time Jisung moved in permanently, but he can assume it was sometime before or after Haechan did. No one questioned Jeno anymore when he announced that Jisung would be staying, and everyone had agreed. According to Renjun, that was the end of the story.
But the thing is—Jisung’s told him it was a bit more than just that. He had pretty much admitted that it was a taboo topic around the house to talk about the reason he was there. He didn’t give Chenle specifics—I’m fine, Chenle, we don’t really need to talk about it, Jisung had signed—but what he did tell him was that it was not an easy route in. They didn’t decide in one moment to let him stay permanently; in fact, it was a really big deal for what felt like a really long time.
Jisung told him that the decision to let him stay was preceded by a huge fight—between Jeno and Haechan specifically. It was something about Haechan suddenly just dropping it on all of them that Jisung would be staying with them indefinitely, possibly even permanently. On Jeno’s end, it set off alarm bells in his head because they were already struggling as they were, and he didn’t want to give Jisung any false hope.
Chenle assumes that no one in the house talks about that fight because according to Jisung, it was possibly the worst fight that occurred within the walls of the Dream House. (Which, to Chenle, said a lot because all seven of them fought about petty things all the time). But no, Jisung said that it was much more than that; it had Jeno losing his patience and Haechan screaming and crying and throwing things with trembling hands, and at one point it had gotten so bad that Renjun and Jisung had to take Jaemin out of the house until the cousins got it sorted out. There’s a window in the kitchen that’s slightly cracked in the corner that they didn’t have the time nor money to get fixed, and Chenle has never asked, but he assumes that it was a result of that fight. Chenle’s also learned over the years that most of the hushed conversations always happened in that small kitchen area, people ducking their heads to go in there when things needed to get a bit more serious.
So, there—Chenle has a play-by-play account of the history of the Dream House on Rainbow Lane, a map in his head to keep track of his weird little found family. He has to admit there are still some days that he does, in fact, feel a little a lot out of place, for reasons that are obvious to him and not them. He’s thankful for them; they always remind him of his place within their little group, even if he doesn’t live there, even if he isn’t as deeply connected with them as most of them were with each other.
In the first place, the way that Chenle had met them had already accentuated their differences. Chenle had actually known of Jeno a bit earlier, since they attended the same high school, and thus Mark and Jaemin by extension. Renjun, though, had already dropped out by the time Chenle had entered freshman year, so the only time they met was on that one, fateful night.
That one fateful night, when Chenle was fifteen and alone in his house because Kun was flying somewhere again. He was trying to get his homework done, crawling his way to the end of his third year of high school, when he heard a weird cracking sound by his window.
And then another. And another. And one more, which seemed to hit the wall this time around.
When Chenle finally gathered enough courage to go and take a look through the curtains, he drew them back to find a splash of raw egg. And another. And another, still running down the window. Wow, and some shell still stuck to it, too.
Chenle looked down in disbelief, because people were egging his house like they did in Western teen movies and in all honesty, Chenle wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to react. When he locked eyes with the people who had done it, it only took a split-second before they sprinted away with a carton of eggs still in hand.
Two people—one whom Chenle had known, and another whom he didn’t. Jaemin was recognizable enough even in the dim streetlight, holding the eggs while his companion raced after him, all smiles and exhilarated laughs. Chenle wasn’t really mad as much as he simply felt inconvenienced, because he just wasn’t prepared to have to deal with that kind of thing. He didn’t have anyone else in the house to alert, and calling his parents or brother would have just been too much of a bother. Calling the police was probably what his mother would have done.
But, as circumstances would have it, Chenle knew enough about Jaemin—at least from the talk that went around at their school—and if it was true that Jaemin lived with his best friend instead of his parents because his parents were literally being tried for child abuse, then Chenle wasn’t going to call the cops on him for having a little too much fun on a Friday night. It wasn’t like he and the other guy—who Chenle found out soon enough was Haechan—had damaged any property, after all.
So, judging by the fact that Jaemin was doing stupid things unsupervised and would probably have gotten into serious trouble if they had thrown eggs at literally any house other than Chenle’s—Chenle just sighed and did the most civilized thing he could do.
He called Jeno.
And truth be told, they weren’t exactly friends. Jeno and Jaemin were a year his senior and they only ever saw each other around in passing. He knew they lived in the same place, but that was about it; Chenle wasn’t privy at the time to the other details such as the fact that four other people lived in their house besides them or that all of them were different kinds of unusual. Chenle still remembers that phone conversation—the confusion in Jeno’s voice as he picked up, the defeated sighs he let out through the whole thing.
“Hello?”
“Hello. It’s Chenle, from school.”
“Oh, hi, this is Jeno, do you have the wrong number?”
“No. Uh… I think your friend Jaemin just... egged my house.”
Silence. Chenle could almost hear the gears turning in Jeno’s head.
“Was he alone?” Jeno asked after a while.
“No. He was with someone else. I didn’t know who, though.”
A long, long sigh on Jeno’s end. He apparently knew.
“Did you call the cops?”
“No, I called you.”
“Thank you,” Jeno uttered instantaneously. “They’re probably on their way back home now. Um… did they break anything?”
Chenle huffed a little. “No, but if they could clean up the mess, I would appreciate it.”
“Okay,” Jeno agreed. “Not Haechan, though, if that’s okay. I’ll go with Jaemin. But I’ll make sure they both apologize.”
Chenle furrowed his brow at that, but decided not to question it. Jeno seemed sensible. He probably had a good reason. “Alright. I’ll send you my address.”
“Thanks."
Jeno had kept the call brief, hanging up after that last word. When Chenle opened his messaging app to send Jeno the address as promised, the gears turned in his own head about the little pieces of information from that one phone call—particularly the fact that Jeno implied that Haechan lived in their house, too. It was the first time Chenle had to think about it, really, because he didn’t really understand their situation. Jeno didn’t even sound fazed by the situation, which Chenle admittedly found a bit odd. And he was barely even attempting to defend his housemates for their actions.
When Jeno, Jaemin and Haechan did arrive at Chenle’s house a few minutes after that, there was still an air of awkwardness that Chenle didn’t quite plan for. It was weird, to say the least—three guys at his doorstep, two of which were Chenle’s literal seniors at school—holding some rags in their hands like they were a cleaning service. When Jeno greeted Chenle with a hi! and a kind smile, Jaemin and Haechan immediately bowed with dragged out apologies of I’m sorry, to which Jeno looked to Chenle seemingly for approval. When Chenle nodded his satisfaction, a little bit dumbfounded, the three of them immediately let themselves in his house, asking if he had any ladders and if he knew where the cleaning liquid was.
Jeno and Jaemin immediately got to work on cleaning up the walls and windows, and Haechan sat on Chenle’s couch with his head down and his knee bouncing incessantly. Chenle had half a mind to offer him a glass of water and chat him up, trying not to seem so cold as he had probably been letting on.
“Is there a reason you’re not helping them out?”
“Um… I have this, uh, thing. I, um— I’m just... not supposed to do heavy work.”
Chenle simply hummed. Both of them could hear Jeno’s and Jaemin’s voices even from the second floor where they were, and Chenle decided to ask, “Are they fighting?”
Haechan giggled sheepishly. “Probably not. Jeno won’t scold us until later.”
Huh. “What, you’ve done this before?”
“Not this, but I know what Jeno’s like,” Haechan pouts, but Chenle could tell he was loosening up. “Sorry for the mess, though.”
“Yeah, whatever, it’s fine.” Chenle sighed, not really knowing how to continue with small talk.
“Do you want to come to the house for dinner?” Haechan asked enthusiastically, his initial shyness somehow gone all at once. “It’s the least we could do.”
“Shouldn’t you ask the others first?” Chenle asked with a raise of his eyebrow, still really just processing the offer in his mind.
“Nah,” Haechan shrugged. “Jeno will offer anyway.”
The thing is, Jeno did offer, after he and Jaemin had cleaned off all the drying egg residue and folded the ladder back into its place in the storage room. He had intended it to be a little peace offering for Chenle’s troubles, and it seemed genuine enough; even Jaemin and Haechan seemed to want him to come, so Chenle just said yes. Jeno’s face lit up when he said he would text the others, and Chenle’s first thought was that wait, there were others? and in hindsight, he probably could have never guessed what was waiting for him, but he went along with it anyway. Just because he was bored (not lonely), and a little hungry (he definitely didn’t have a whole lot of food in the fridge).
Chenle really didn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t what he came face to face with after they had walked the ten minutes from Chenle’s street to Rainbow Lane. Sure, Jeno and Jaemin were his schoolmates, they lived in a house together; Chenle knew that much. Haechan was new information, but easy enough to reconcile after Haechan told him during their little chat that he and Jeno were related. But he didn’t expect them to live literally a few streets away, in an actual house instead of some dorm building, completely unsupervised—and with three other people.
The moment Jeno opened the door, it was already pure chaos.
Chenle has to admit that at that moment in time, he was completely, utterly culture shocked—there were six of them in total, bustling around the living space, stopping in their tracks to greet Chenle when they saw an unfamiliar face. The TV was playing a sports match and there was so much going on all at once, and Chenle had only taken two steps through the door.
Chenle remembers it clearly. There was a rainbow-colored welcome mat under his feet, and an entirely painted accent wall to his left. Renjun was the first to greet him, tell him that the murals around the house were his doing, and Chenle could never forget his silent but confident introduction that he was Chinese, very gay, and responsible for every trace of paint on the walls. Mark was the second to greet him with an enthusiastic yo~! and a clap on his back, apologizing on Jaemin and Haechan’s behalf for throwing eggs at his house. Then he was led to the open kitchen where Jisung was, the younger bashfully nodding his head after placing a bowl in the microwave, making unfamiliar movements with his hands.
Chenle could never forget the way Jisung’s eyes sparkled as he signed to introduce himself, Jeno interpreting for him on the side. I’m Jisung. This is my family. Nice to meet you, Chenle-ssi!
To say that Chenle wasn’t endeared by them all would have been a lie. It wasn’t something he ever thought he could get used to—six people living together in a relatively small house, all the walls painted instead of paneled or plain white. There were canvases all over the place in one corner of the house—Renjun’s doing, he had correctly assumed—and everything was chaos but it worked. Chenle wouldn’t ever have thought that these people would become his friends. A family, too, like Jisung had said. Chenle even remembers the conversation he had with Kun about it a few weeks later when he came back home.
“Someone egged the house?” Kun asked, not as surprised as Chenle thought he would be when he told him the news.
“Yeah,” Chenle shrugged, walking across the space from the stairs, towards the upstairs living room. Kun had just gotten home from a series of flights, but Chenle didn’t really expect him to be here instead of in Seoul.
“Where did you come from?”
“Uh… I kinda made friends with the people who egged our house.”
Kun looked at him incredulously, snorting before shrugging back. “Cool.”
Chenle stares. “So you’re not gonna tell mom?”
“Mom doesn’t need to know. You need friends anyway.”
Chenle was about to scoff when they were so rudely interrupted by a familiar tuft of black hair surfacing from the couch, agreeing with Kun. “Yeah, Chenle, you should be out socializing at your age. Good for you!”
Chenle rolled his eyes at Ten, ignoring his remark in favor of asking his brother, “Why is he here?”
“That’s possibly your future brother-in-law,” Kun rolled his eyes. “You should get used to it.”
Ten got off the couch with a pout, huffing at Kun for being referred to as a that, but he was used to the brothers’ bickering anyway. He simply waltzed over to Chenle for an unsolicited hug, ruffling his hair even though Chenle was clearly annoyed, telling him he was proud of him for making some friends and enthusiastically saying that he should introduce them sometime.
Ten and Kun certainly didn’t know what they were getting into when Chenle did introduce them to the Dream House’s residents, and even to the house itself. But they asked for it anyway, and so they met Chenle’s whirlwind of a friend group. They didn’t do much in the way of embarrassing Chenle, thankfully, the pair of them being polite as ever. Chenle would even say, (though he would never admit it out loud), that Ten did quite a good job of keeping up with them; he was a preschool teacher, after all, and Chenle had to admit that the Dreamies’ bickering was sometimes reminiscent of preschool children.
Chenle doesn’t know exactly when the title of Dream House or the Dreamies came about, but he accepted it because it just fit. The biggest mural at the house encompassed the entirety of the left wall, covering the dining area, the smaller kitchen, the entire left side of the hallway beside the stairs. It was painted sky blue with clouds and birds and a bright sun, vibrant yellow.
But the biggest attraction was the rainbow in the center, seven bands of color curving between two clouds, one name written on each, and the word DREAM inscribed in bubbly letters under the bend. That was their rainbow. Their dream.
Within the first months of Chenle spending time with them all, Chenle understood more and more of what made everyone who they were, what made the Dream House what it was. Maybe he learned all these stories to make up for lost time, to connect with who each of them were before Chenle really even knew them. It was a fascinating journey, difficult and heartbreaking at times; but every person, every story was precious. Even the ones he hadn’t quite figured out yet, Chenle let unfold gracefully in the free packets of his mind.
What Chenle had noticed arguably the most, however, was the same dynamic he couldn’t quite put a finger on the first time that Jeno came with Jaemin and Haechan to Chenle’s house. It made a lot of sense, though, the more he was able to think about it: technicalities considered, Jeno was the owner of the house, especially when Doyoung wasn’t actually there. It took a while for Chenle to be able to wrap his head around it, how Jeno went from losing his parents to suddenly gaining a six-person household that he apparently took a hell of a lot of responsibility for, but each new discovery came with more and more respect. Jeno was, for all intents and purposes, hard-carrying the damn household day by day. And yet he made sure never to look tired, never to make anyone out to be a burden. He was just that dutiful. Chenle took the time to understand how that came to be.
On the mural of their rainbow, Jeno’s name stands in bold, white letters right at the very top, claiming the brick color of the red band. The lowest frequency, the longest wavelengths. Jeno was a steady presence, quiet and patient for all his tenacity, a kind of power cloaked around him that Chenle thinks he’s only ever seen on royalty. Jeno was always there, silently watching over all seven of them—himself included—with attention that was intense but constant, hidden beneath his calm exterior and bright eye smile. He was fierce without intent, could tone the Dreamies down if he wanted to without even lifting a finger.
It wasn’t much of a secret to Chenle that everyone at the house was sensitive to each other’s needs, whether or not they liked to actively make a show of it. Everyone knew sign language for Jisung, silently offered Haechan help when he was having his bad days, but never chastised. They bought everyone’s favorite snacks and knew not to get too physical when joking around with Jaemin, or not to bother Renjun when he was painting another wall. But it was Jeno who did it the most, in Chenle’s honest, objective opinion; Jeno was always the most considerate, so much that Chenle understands how it might have become unnoticeable after living with him as long as everyone else had. But Chenle managed to see through that concern, moreso in the times that he wasn’t the object of it, but also in the rare occasions that he was.
Jeno’s always the first to shush someone when a joke hits too close to home. It was the first thing Chenle noticed, because they do joke around way too much. But Jeno has a weird power when it comes to diffusing situations, and it’s a lot different than when Mark or Renjun does it, leading Chenle to ponder sometimes if there’s just some weird spell laced into Jeno’s gentle voice. His words never sounded like reprimands but still managed to serve the same purpose. It was unreal. Chenle wished he could do that sometimes, but he knows well enough that if he was in half the situations Jeno was in, he’d very likely blow a fuse within five seconds.
He was fiercely protective of everyone, too, despite every joke he makes that they had an agenda against him to stress him out as much as humanly possible. Chenle isn’t sure he’s ever heard Jeno openly complain about anything that wasn’t an actual valid concern, which made him realize that that was harder to achieve than one might think. Jeno was the type to stretch himself out for whatever they needed, in every sense of the word in their house. It humbled Chenle to an extent when he thought about it, the way Jeno basically handled what was the equivalent of six idiot siblings, especially in comparison to the petty bickering that Chenle always engaged in with Kun.
Jeno was welcoming to Chenle from the very start. He did his best not to let him feel out of place, made sure to keep inviting him back to the house until eventually Chenle just started coming by himself. When it came to Mark, Jeno always sat down with him when he wrote songs on his guitar in the living room, giving him notes and even suggestions from time to time. Jeno didn’t let it get to him when Haechan teased him for anything and everything, nor when Jaemin and Renjun inevitably joined in. And Jeno always signed when he spoke to Jisung, the most fluent out of all of them. That struck a chord in Chenle’s chest, because he never could have guessed that Jisung was the subject of Jeno’s biggest fight with Haechan, at one point in time. Jeno treated Jisung like he had known him his whole life. That was the way he treated them all, really. Like they were his own.
It was easy to assume at first that losing his parents young—and everything else, too—had simply forced Jeno to grow up much too fast. It was true, to an extent; sometimes Chenle overheard the conversations Jeno would have with Doyoung when he came over, ducking into the dim light of the smaller kitchen. Keeping them afloat couldn’t have been easy, and the things that the brothers talked about confirmed it. They didn’t always take themselves too seriously, but the evidence was glaring in the lines on their faces. Doyoung had an affinity for all the Dreamies, too, but Chenle can only imagine how much of the hardship he was keeping to himself supporting one younger brother, and let alone six. Seven, since Chenle arrived, but he had never asked Doyoung for anything. And Chenle’s heart gets heavy thinking of what it must have felt like to be in Jeno’s position: knowing that even if he wasn’t asking for himself, living with the Dreamies meant he was still asking Doyoung for more.
Over time, though, Chenle’s learned that Jeno—despite the world’s best efforts—was still very much a kid. There was still some innocence in him that his life hadn’t managed to wipe away, a healthy sliver of naivete that gave all seven of them a little spark of hope. Things weren’t always great, but they were good, and Chenle knows that everyone lives for the moments when Jeno lets himself bask in that good for a while, drop the act of maturity and let his shoulders drop—metaphorically, of course, because he slouches the whole day anyway. There’s a computer in the corner of the house that everyone uses but is mostly Jeno’s, and there are times that Renjun has to tap him not-so-lightly on the back of the head because he’s playing games when he should be studying. Secretly, though, god knows they all kind of just want to let him be sometimes—what with how hard he works on a normal day, how much he’s sacrificed already just by letting them all be there. Even though he never lets them acknowledge it.
So, when it came to the Dream House, Chenle figured out pretty quickly that everything began and ended with Jeno. Doyoung, too, by extension, because most of what went into the house budget was his money, but Jeno was the one who handled it all. Truth be told, Chenle didn’t expect just how much he was on top of everything, with Jeno even asking him for budgeting tips after learning Chenle was good with numbers. Sometimes he seemed more like a disgruntled middleman than anything, always negotiating for whatever everyone needed.
When it came to Jeno’s own needs, it was always clear to everyone that he rarely ever put them first. Jeno was skilled in the art of looking at the big picture with anything and everything; he probably had to, considering his life had been completely turned around from being borderline rich to being supported by his brother who wasn’t even supposed to be working yet at the time. Still, he never complained about the changes he had to make, the lifestyle he had to accommodate. Jeno could have probably gotten into university with a sports scholarship but he turned it down, because training all day would have meant he couldn’t be at the house. Not to mention a more standard grant got him more allowances—so in the end, despite what he most probably actually wanted—he went for what was best for everyone else. Even though he didn’t really seem to hate majoring in computer tech, it’s a known fact it probably wasn’t the choice he’d have made if everything went his way.
Time and time again, Chenle tracks back to that first conversation he had with Haechan and understands more and more that Jeno is predictable, in all the very best ways. He could sense it in the way Haechan acknowledged Jeno with respect but not fear, the sureness on his face when he predicted that Jeno would so kindly invite Chenle back to Rainbow Lane as a truce for his troubles. Jeno kept them anchored, the unofficial captain of their ship, a steady presence when even the smallest of things came to rock the boat.
In two years of basically living with them but not really, Chenle can’t help but compare himself to Jeno, sometimes—their steady, secure, adaptable Jeno. The two of them came from fairly similar backgrounds, well-off and set for life, but fate simply dealt them different strokes of luck. Chenle knows he’s rich—the Dreamies make it very clear to him when they ask him to buy them food or any other thing they can’t afford by themselves, and he almost always complies. Jeno thanks him for it, for spoiling them a little, and Chenle silently hopes they don’t make too much of it all the time because he’s just happy he can make them happy somehow. They don’t patronize him for it, of course; everyone makes sure not to treat Chenle like a walking ATM even though they joke about it constantly, but it still puts him in a place that sets him apart, even just a little, no matter how much he tries to connect.
Chenle was close to them all, had had the opportunity for a long conversation with each of them at least once, though definitely some more than others. He could be a little closer to Jaemin and Haechan, but that would come with time. They had lots of time. Chenle only hopes they all pick up on his desire to understand and be understood, to be part of their family even if he came last, even if he came different. Even if he could never fully understand what it was really like for their household, Chenle was always willing to try.
At present, it’s been two years with the Dreamies and Chenle’s gotten pretty used to the flow of things, but all the while he’s still learning. A new academic year would be beginning again in just a week, Jeno and Jaemin gearing up for their second year at university, and Chenle his first as a math major at the same school. Mark was entering his third year at his own College of Arts just a few minutes’ walk away from the house, and the rest of them back home had a pile of Jeno’s old books ready to study on their own time when they had nothing else to do, which Chenle had learned was a lot of the time.
It’s always been chaos. It’s chaos now, still, another night that Chenle’s sleeping over and his own house is left alone and empty in favor of being with his friends. They’re preparing food and setting the table while Mark searches for something good they can watch on the TV, and everyone’s wearing their oldest, most comfortable clothes, basking in the presence of each other. They have smiles on their faces, Jaemin speaking in that signature way of his to joke with Haechan as they set the plates down, and Chenle knows those are definitely still the same two idiots who threw eggs at his house when they were seventeen. Renjun’s chasing Daegal who somehow ran upstairs like she always does when Chenle brings her around. Jisung is with Chenle in the big kitchen, waiting for a dessert to bake in the oven because he’s been learning to bake lately, and Chenle’s pretending not to watch as he’s taking the boxes of takeout chicken—his treat—out from the plastic bags to bring them to the table. Jeno kindly takes them from him, and—damn it, raises an eyebrow and smirks when he catches Chenle staring, Jisung remaining oblivious as he intently watches his broiling cheese tarts. Chenle’s sure his own cheeks are as pink as his freshly dyed hair, but no one has to see him until it subsides.
Okay, maybe someone does, but it doesn’t really matter at that point because Jisung is clumsy as hell and opening the oven, about to take the desserts out and Chenle has to stop him from doing something absentminded and stupid like he always does.
“Yah!” Chenle scolds, padding over to disrupt the younger, who whips his head to look at him with wide eyes. Chenle shakes his head and grabs something from the countertop and when he hands it to Jisung, he’s blushing now, too. Chenle can’t believe he was about to take the tray out with literally his bare hands, but he was able to give Jisung the oven mitt in time, thankfully. And at least on the blushing score, they were now pretty much even.
Thank you, Jisung signs, eyes crinkling as he put the oven mitt on innocently.
You can’t talk to us if you burn your hand, Jisung, Chenle signs back without speaking, be careful.
Jisung just gives back a smile and a nod of his head, and that’s enough for Chenle to smile back.
Damn it. Chenle needs to swallow down that feeling in his chest.
The train of thought is forgotten when Jeno calls everyone over to the table for dinner, waving at the two of them in the kitchen and then watching fondly as Renjun comes back downstairs carrying the ball of white fluff that was Chenle’s dog. He sets her down on the living room carpet and goes into the small kitchen to wash his hands while everyone coos, and soon everyone else is gathering at the table, lured by the sight of fried chicken and lots of rice.
“Jisung! Come here so we can eat!” Chenle hears Jaemin call out to their general direction, and Chenle drags Jisung along with him after the tarts are taken out and left to cool on the kitchen island. Everyone is smiling, never a silent moment in the Dream House especially as of late. It’s pretty much a normal night, Chenle muses to himself, taking his seat beside Jisung while waiting for Renjun to come back from the other kitchen.
Chenle’s heart is full. He’s come to appreciate the hustle and bustle, the quirks of every dynamic that went on and filled the place with life. Later on, they’ll probably watch a movie until they get sleepy and retreat to their rooms, and rock-paper-scissors for who sleeps on the couch, even though Jaemin always volunteers for that anyway and lets Chenle sleep in his (Doyoung’s) bed in the shared room with Jeno. Jeno kind of controls the situation so that Haechan and Jisung never actually had to give up their downstairs room, and on the rare occasions that Mark or Renjun lost, no one slept on the couch because Mark didn’t care about sharing the bed. The two of them had the old master bedroom, for some reason, so it was big enough.
Right now, they were all happily gathered around a table of food, not too many traces of weariness on anyone’s faces. Chenle’s pretty sure Haechan is trying to hold Mark’s hand under the table, and Jeno and Renjun are doting over Jisung, telling him to take the first bite because he was the youngest. Chenle rolls his eyes fondly at how Jisung practically preens, even though they do this at literally every meal, grabbing a chicken leg and making a show of biting it to let them all hear the crunch. All of them erupt in overdramatic cheers, Chenle included, and everything is wonderful. It’s perfect. This is theirs.
Chenle wonders often how they manage it, all this joy within their pre-packaged chaos, no matter who they were or where they came from. He stares at the wall behind them that Mark and Haechan are seated in front of, the blue sky and the rainbow painted by Renjun’s hands. Jeno’s name on the red, everyone else following. The bubbly dark blue letters, spelling out their dream. Chenle can’t wait to keep growing with them, to see that dream come to life.
“Ready for university, Chenle?”
Chenle whipped his head to the side when Jeno asked the question, snapping out of his reverie and giving his most confident, most nonchalant reply. “Yeah. Just another adventure, I guess.”
“Wow,” Jaemin exclaimed teasingly, while dramatically clutching a hand to his heart and causing everyone to laugh. “Our Chenle is growing up so fast!”
Chenle rolled his eyes as everyone continued to joke, Haechan uttering something about savoring the moments while Jisung was still a baby, and the conversation went on naturally from there. Chenle couldn’t help but shake his head fondly, stealing the last piece of Jeno’s favorite flavored chicken while they were all distracted bickering. Jisung catches him but doesn’t alert anyone else, sending Chenle one of his small, heart-shaped smiles instead.
It was true enough, what he said—whatever came next would just be one more adventure. Another chapter of Chenle’s life closed, a new one opened, all with his best friends by his side. They took life day by day, dream by dream. The past was locked away in his heart, the present came with all kinds of change, but the future—the future was bright. Bright as these seven wavelengths of light, the family he’d always wanted.
And just like that rainbow beaming proud in their home, there was nowhere to go for them but up.