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A decade after he leaves Korea, Chenle hears a familiar bass across the airwaves. He is sitting in the breezy living room of his family’s bungalow in downtown Shanghai, the old, outdated portable radio on the coffee table playing in the background at low volume. The radio is disused and faulty, the sound quality poor and staticky, often malfunctioning and needing a few hard taps with his palm to get it in order again. His family have given him tons of state-of-the-art audio and stereo sound systems for his birthday, impatient for him to throw it away, but Chenle can’t seem to let go of this old creaky radio. When he hears the first few resonant twangs, the book on guitar tuning he’s reading slips soundlessly out of his fingers, landing on the floor. He trips off the couch and sinks to his knees before the radio, turning the knobs desperately up to the highest volume and pressing his ear breathlessly to the speakers.
The bass screeches on in a complicated, fast-paced solo, when suddenly an indescribably smoky voice joins it, unique, unmistakable. It’s a voice that has haunted Chenle for ten years, that he missed ferociously and never thought he would ever hear again. He presses a trembling hand to his mouth, tears spilling uncontrollably from his eyes as the song ends and the radio host interviews the singer.
“Congratulations on your third solo album hitting multi-platinum again, Mr Park. The title song, which you wrote and composed personally, has been third on the Billboard charts for two weeks and counting. Can you introduce it?”
“Thank you. This song... it’s actually about my freshman year of high school.” A laugh. “That was a crazy year, man. I met this bunch of guys, who were all incredibly talented musicians, but even better friends. We started a band and won a competition. That was the year I learned to play the bass, just to impress a sassy, sweet little Chinese boy in my class I had this ridiculous crush on. This song is about the last ten years that I spent learning Mandarin just so that one day I could tell him – Wo ai ni.” A pause, then a deep breath. “Chenle-yah, come back. I’ll be waiting.”
Chenle’s knees give out beneath him, sitting down hard on the cold marble floor with a thump that knocks the breath out of his lungs. The radio drones on in the background, but all he can hear is his heart roaring in his ears, slamming out of his ribcage. Because for ten years, Chenle had never been able to forget a particular Korean boy named Park Jisung.
Chenle remembers the very first day he talked to Jisung. He was fifteen and a new transfer student on an exchange program in a Korean high school, and he had no other friends in the country except for two seniors named Jeno and Jaemin. So when Jeno and Jaemin had said that they were starting a band and needed vocalists, of course Chenle had done the only thing he could do to impress them – convince them to leave it to him, even though he didn’t know a single other soul in the school and had no idea where he would go to find singers.
After racking his brain over it for hours and not absorbing a single word of the lessons that morning, Chenle had decided that he had no other choice but to thicken his skin and go all out. He had no reputation to lose anyway.
But his heart was still pounding erratically, nausea rising in his throat as he got unsteadily to his feet and dragged his footsteps to the front of the boisterous, rowdy class during break. He picked up a marker with slippery fingers and scrawled on a corner of the whiteboard in big letters of clumsy Korean: Singers needed for a band. Look for Chenle.
He quickly dropped the marker after he finished, sneaking a glance through his eyelashes to see if anyone was staring or laughing at him. No one appeared to be paying any attention and he heaved a sigh of relief and disappointment as he shuffled back to his seat with his head down.
He was starting to despair, watching his notice languishing at the corner of the whiteboard and being buried under tons of other announcements when at the end of the day a shadow loomed over his desk as he was shoving his textbooks into his bag.
Chenle looked up to see one of his classmates, a tall boy who sat at the back of the class and he had never heard talking before. He had drowsy, hooded eyes and tousled hair and looked as awkward as Chenle felt as he said hesitantly, “Uh. I saw your notice? About the band?”
“Oh!” Chenle quickly stammered, his heart leaping in excitement. “Yes! Thanks! Um... can you sing?”
The boy’s face fell, and Chenle’s heart sank. But then the boy looked up hopefully, his voice tentative as he said, “Not really. But I can play the bass?”
Chenle nearly sprang out of his seat, he was so ecstatic. But he tried not to appear too freakishly overjoyed as he gripped the edge of his table and said offhandedly, “You’re in.”
The smile that lit up the boy’s face transformed it breathtakingly. “Thanks,” he said, sounding so genuinely grateful that Chenle’s chest tugged. “By the way... I’m Jisung.” He ducked his head as he mumbled his name, looking oddly shy, and Chenle felt his face grow warm at the sudden tension in the air.
“I’m Chenle,” he replied, and Jisung smiled shyly. “I know.”
Chenle struggles to reconcile this memory with the new information that he has just gained. Jisung didn’t know how to play the bass yet on that day? But he had seemed so assured, so confident as he strode to the second storey where the sophomore’s classes were, slipping into one and coming out with another boy at his heels. “This is Mark-hyung,” he said to Chenle. “He’s an amazing singer.”
Mark blushed at Jisung’s words, waving a hand self-deprecatingly. “I’ve always wanted to join a band,” he breathes, eyes curving, his enthusiasm infectious and diffusing the stilted silence between Chenle and Jisung as the three of them troop down the corridor to the cafeteria to meet Jeno and Jaemin, where Chenle had gotten a little carried away and introduced Jisung as a bass god, just to show off to them. At that time, he hadn’t realized the pressure his thoughtless babbling would put on Jisung, how he had set expectations that Jisung might find it hard to live up to.
But then again, that explained the times when Chenle would catch Jisung staring at the bass with his fingers fumbling over the frets, seemingly at a loss to how to even hold the instrument properly. He had dismissed those moments as nervousness, but it all makes sense now. He feels a pang that he had been so dense not to realize that Jisung was struggling to hide his bewilderment and lack of skill, afraid to let Chenle down, afraid he would be kicked off the band if he admitted it.
He suddenly recalls the days he had turned around in the middle of class to sneak a curious glance at Jisung, only to find his head slumped on his desk, dozing behind his textbook. Those were probably the mornings he was exhausted from staying up all night practicing until his fingers were sore with blisters and trying to get the notes right.
On the day of the competition, as they were waiting for the results, Jisung had held his hand for the first time. Chenle was startled to feel how coarse his fingers were, covered with calluses, but what took his breath away more than that was how gentle Jisung’s grasp was, more gentle than Chenle had ever imagined or expected from his gruff exterior, more gentle than Chenle had ever expected anyone would be to him since he arrived in Korea.
Maybe that was the second that Chenle had fallen in love with Jisung. But the next day, he had flown back to China, and never returned to Korea ever since.
It’s hard to believe how fast the years have flown by, that it’s been a decade since he last saw Jisung or talked to him. Over the years, Chenle had found himself thinking of Jisung at the most random times – the moment after he closed his eyes at night, just before he fell asleep, the moment he woke up, before he remembered he was back home in Shanghai and no longer at the dormitory in Korea, when he was eating, working, listening and making music, breathing. In fact, Chenle realizes that he had been thinking of Jisung whenever he did anything. He had been thinking of him all this time.
He had kept up with Donghyuck and Renjun’s career as a rising duo, bought out the entire record store in his neighbourhood when they released their debut album. He had tracked their progress through grainy pictures on the internet and low quality videos as they swept up all the rookie awards and grew from teenybopper idols into respected Hallyu stars.
Of course, he had pursued news of Jisung’s career with the same intensity. When Jisung was shortlisted to be the backup bassist for one of the top singers in Korea, Chenle wasn’t surprised. He had never doubted in Jisung’s musical talent or that he was destined for superstardom. When Jisung’s second album shot him out of obscurity to become a public name, Chenle was as proud of him as if he had accomplished it himself. But occasionally, he felt a dull ache in his chest and wondered if Jisung still thought of him occasionally, or remembered their freshman year together.
Chenle can hardly believe the fact that all this time – all this time, Jisung was also thinking of him, the same way Chenle was. He was thinking of Chenle so much that he had written a song for him, that he had spent ten years learning Chinese for him. He had never forgotten Chenle for a single minute.
Chenle suddenly feels a fierce pang of missing for that fateful year of high school, their band of brothers. He can summon up Jaemin’s mischievous smile as if it were just yesterday, Mark’s warm eyes and Donghyuck’s haunting voice. He had kept in touch with Renjun at first, because he had always been Chenle’s special hyung, but because they were on opposite sides of the world it had been hard to maintain contact. It had been years since Mark, Jaemin and Jeno had dropped off his radar and Chenle wonders how they are doing, if they are happy and still making music.
The next day, Chenle finds himself at the travel agent’s, purchasing a one-way ticket to South Korea with his heart racing and adrenaline licking through his veins. “When would you like to depart?” the girl at the counter asks pleasantly, and Chenle replies hoarsely, “As soon as possible.”
After he has booked the ticket, the giddy impulsiveness fades and logical thinking kicks in. He can’t possibly arrive in Korea with only his bags and no other plan. He doesn’t know anyone there except for the six guys, five of whom he has no idea how to contact. Actually, he has no idea how to contact Jisung either, but he’s the only one with the remotest possibility to find.
Chenle returns home with the air ticket shoved in his back jeans pocket and turns on the computer, immediately beginning the exhausting process of Googling Jisung’s Korean record label. He finds Jisung’s official website, where there is an address for fan mail but no phone number. In frustration, Chenle buries his face in his hands and runs his fingers through his hair.
He is about to log off when his Skype window pops up and Jisung – Park Jisung is on the screen, looking like a dream. The video window is dim and laggy, but Jisung still looks achingly beautiful and breathtakingly familiar, far more familiar than he has any right to be.
“Holy shit,” Chenle gasps in Chinese, and quickly switches to Korean. He hasn’t spoken Korean for at least half a decade, but the words flow to his tongue surprisingly quickly, if a little halting. “How did you – How did you find me? I didn’t even know I was logged in.”
Jisung laughs, a deep, gravelly laugh that sends a delicious shiver down Chenle’s spine. He ducks his head, looking sheepish. “You don’t want to hear it,” he says drily. “It’s a long story.”
He turns, distracted, as someone offscreen calls his name, and quickly looks back at the camera with an apologetic look. “Sorry, I kind of have a performance in like five seconds.”
“Four!” the disembodied voice calls frazzledly, and Jisung rolls his eyes, looking harassed. Chenle is still opening and closing his mouth like a fish, trying to remember how to speak coherently.
“Have you booked the ticket?” Jisung says briskly, with a confidence that is new to Chenle. It’s like he didn’t even doubt that Chenle would obey the moment he commanded him to fly to Korea, like he thought he could summon Chenle whenever he wanted, with one word. And he was right.
Chenle bristles indignantly, knowing that he is delaying Jisung’s precious time but not caring. “Who said I’m going there?”
The way Jisung’s smile falters makes his heart lurch, because it reminds him strikingly of that first day they met at fifteen, when Jisung had seemed so uncertain and nervous. It softens Chenle’s heart and makes him quickly reassure, “Just kidding. I bought it.”
The cocky grin is instantly back on Jisung’s face, as if it had never slipped. “Good,” he says, and the word in his gritty voice sounds like a promise. It sounds like a caress. “Email me your flight details and I’ll meet you at the airport,” he commands, looking behind him again. “I gotta go.”
Chenle’s mouth is too parched to reply, and he expects the window to snap closed, but Jisung remains in front of the screen, eyes running over Chenle with a look that he can only call hungry.
“Lele?” Jisung says softly, almost inaudibly, and Chenle leans forward. “Godspeed.” Jisung kisses his fingertips and brings them to the screen, the pads of his fingers momentarily taking up the entire window. Then they withdraw and Chenle sees him smiling in embarrassment before the window flickers into darkness.
Chenle lies in bed that night, tossing and turning recklessly, unable to sleep. He can’t believe that in a few hours, he will be able to stand on the same ground as Jisung, breathe the same air and hear his voice in the flesh. It feels too miraculous to be true. He wonders what kind of face Jisung will make when he sees Chenle again – will he be surprised? Happy? Disappointed? Chenle knows that he has changed greatly. They both have. He is no longer the shy, sweet little boy Jisung met at fifteen and had a crush on. He is a man now, coarse and more jaded and cautious, no longer as naive.
Sometime in the wee hours of dawn, Chenle finally falls into an exhausted sleep. When he blinks awake to the morning light, he gasps and leaps out of bed as the clock tells him he’s running late.
In the end, Chenle never has the time to put on his specially prepared outfit – a carefully picked-out long-sleeved sweater over a white polo shirt, paired with denim jeans, just the right amount of smart and casual. It’s either go in the clothes he wore to bed or miss the flight and Chenle sulks in the back of the taxi as it speeds over the highway to the airport. Fortunately he had the foresight not to wear pajamas last night, or he’d look like more of a clown than he already is. He didn’t even have time to mist himself with cologne or do anything more than splash water on his face and brush his teeth. Chenle groans. It’s just like him to oversleep on the most important day of his life.
Chenle falls asleep again in the plane, and when the pilot announces over the inflight speakers that they have landed at the Seoul International Airport, Chenle starts awake, his mouth open with a thread of drool, completely unprepared and centuries away from ready to meet Jisung. He fights back panic, his gut suddenly clenching with cold fear as he pictures Jisung standing at the arrival hall, looking flawlessly put-together and sparkly and devastatingly handsome, probably holding a giant bouquet of roses or something equally ridiculous.
Chenle sits rooted in his seat, unwilling to get off the plane until the stewardesses firmly request him to disembark. Reluctantly, he drags his feet with a sigh and runs a nervous hand through his hopelessly messy hair as he goes through the immigration procedures.
Chenle feels like he might throw up as he stands before the arrival gates. This is a mistake and he wants to turn and run back to China, never see or think about Park Jisung and his stupid smile again. But then he thinks of that selfsame smile, so artless and warm and easily hurt, and Chenle can’t bring his feet to turn around. He takes a deep breath and summons up every last bit of his courage, closing his eyes and trudging out of the arrival gates like someone facing a firing squad.
“Lele!!!” Chenle hears his name being shouted so loudly it sounds like the whole airport can hear, in a voice that is decidedly not Jisung’s, and his eyes fly open in disbelief to see Jaemin barrelling towards him at full speed and launching himself into Chenle’s arms. Chenle barely has the time to drop his suitcases and catch Jaemin, almost losing his balance and making the both of them land in a heap.
Jaemin suffocates him in a crushing hug, and Chenle’s eyes widen when he is attacked from behind too and Donghyuck’s giggle tickles his ear, Jeno walking up from behind Jaemin, looking older and more mature but his dazzling smile still unchanged as two more pairs of hands that are presumably Renjun’s and Mark’s wrap around them from behind.
“Holy crap,” Chenle can’t stop repeating, catching himself speaking in Chinese and abruptly switching to Korean. “How did you guys –” he stops, just blinking at them and trying to breathe.
The niggling question at the back of his mind is answered when from behind them a tall man walks up, wearing a ludicrously formal suit and looking so hopelessly gorgeous that Chenle’s knees buckle. He’s not holding roses, but something even worse – a gigantic, two foot tall sign screaming Chenle’s full name in hanzi in hot pink letters that is the dorkiest thing Chenle has ever seen in his life.
Chenle feels like bursting into hysterical laughter, ugly sobbing, or manic screaming, all at the same time. Since he can’t decides, he just stands there with his mouth open like an idiot, asphyxiating until Jisung walks right up to him and closes the space between them, gathering him into his arms. “Welcome back,” he whispers in Chenle’s ear, and suddenly, Chenle can breathe again.
They drive straight from the airport to the old studio, without even stopping off at the hotel to drop off Chenle’s luggages. “You can crash there,” Jaemin says flippantly, and Chenle opens his mouth to ask how? but thinks better of it. His memories of the old, ramshackle studio they had scraped up money to rent in high school are dreary and miserable, better forgotten.
They are piled together in the back of Jisung’s black tinted work van, and it feels nostalgically like the old beat-up rides they used to drive to gigs, squashed in the back sweating with their equipment. The only difference is that now Jisung is legal to drive, and there is something about the largeness of his hands on the steering wheel, the steady strength of his knuckles, that makes Chenle’s heart flip. Jisung has matured in ways Chenle never expected, quiet and thoughtful when he used to be chatty and giggly, composed and cool but his dark eyes intense as they bore searchingly into Chenle’s. He has grown into his height, carrying himself with a disarming confidence that has no traces of his awkward pubescent slouch.
Chenle realizes what Jaemin meant as soon as they climb down the steps and enter the basement studio. He gasps to see the dingy, crumbling room completely altered, refurbished from top to bottom, entirely different. Now, it is lit in cozy shades of gold, the walls newly painted a spotless off-white and the floor carpeted in thick plush maroon. The place has been fully installed with more than five air-conditioners, emitting a refreshing chill. But what is the most stunning is the complete orchestra of sparkling, brand-new instruments displayed proudly at the front of the room. Chenle runs to pick up the acoustic guitar, running eager fingers down the smooth, mahogany surface. He turns to see Jisung watching him with an indulgent, pleased smile. “This is –”
“The limited edition one from that Beatles concert that was always on your wishlist,” Jisung confirms, and when Chenle turns it around, he finds that it’s true.
“Well,” Jaemin says, clapping his hands with a bossy impatience uncannily similar to his teenage self. “What are we waiting for?”
It breaks the ice and they all laugh, not wasting any time before taking their places and picking up their respective instruments. Jeno rolls up the sleeves of his business suit, loosens his tie and unbuttons his collar, picking up the drumsticks. Jisung walks right up and stops unnervingly close to Chenle, so close Chenle can smell his cologne dizzyingly. He picks up the electric guitar effortlessly and slings it over his shoulder, his eyes meeting Chenle’s as he breaks into a roguish eye-smile. “Let’s jam.”
It doesn’t come easily at first, not after ten years. Their chemistry is difficult to recapture, the rhythm that they had easily synced in the past now uneven and mismatched. Jaemin starts off tentatively, the pristine, tinkling notes of his piano wavering in the silence. Then Jeno picks up the beat with his drums, and Chenle hesitantly joins in a few clumsy strums. He is much more experienced than he was at fifteen, having spent the last ten years honing his art. Mark bravely sings an errant note, and Renjun and Chenle harmonize encouragingly, but the music truly starts when Jisung crashes into the first bold, ringing riffs of bass, and everything seems to click. Donghyuck’s voice rings out, warm with a new depth and maturity, completing their sound perfectly.
Their sound is noticeably different from a decade ago – but not in a bad way. In fact, Chenle thinks that he likes this new sound better. Their music used to embody immaturity and brashness and youth, loud and bone-shaking. But now, it has a new dimension that softens it immeasurably.
Chenle thinks with inordinate and fierce pride that there is no sound quite like theirs, no band quite like Dream. And there will never be. Because they are unique, one of a kind, the first band comprised of multiple nationalities and such vastly contrasting personalities, but still managing to mesh together in miraculous ways. But most importantly, there will never be a brotherhood like theirs, a friendship that spanned a decade and will continue indefinitely. Because their music is about love and friendship and happiness. It’s about a high school garage band called Dream which had broken records and made history.
When they finally manage to record a version of the latest song that they jointly penned and composed that they are satisfied with, no less than five record labels jostle and vie to sign them. Even if none did, Donghyuck, Renjun and Jisung could get them signed and recorded in a heartbeat. But in the end, they pick the original one that offered them their very first contract in high school – Donghyuck and Renjun’s company. None of them have forgotten the promise of reunion they impulsively made as teenagers but never forgot, never dreamed that they would be able to keep but unexpectedly did.
They will go on to smash even more impossible records, break even more barriers. They will release a few worldwide hits as NCT Dream. They will start a new era, redefine music with their style. It all starts tonight, when Chenle will crash on the brand-new, impossibly soft velvet couch, drained but contented, watching as Jaemin scribbles the first notes of their debut song on manuscript paper in the light of the table lamp. Chenle will move back to Korea again (Jisung finally persuading him to stay in his extravagant, posh apartment), and the rest is history.
But for now – for now, Chenle is content to nestle into Jisung’s arms on the couch, his eyes fluttering drowsily as Jisung murmurs indecipherable lyrics into his ear and brushes gentle fingers through Chenle’s hair. For now, this instant is so heartbreakingly perfect that Chenle wants to stop time and live in it forever: the last thing he sees as he closes his eyes Jisung’s sleepy smile, as warm and unbearably dear as it was at fifteen, pressing the softest of kisses to Chenle’s forehead.