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Click. He rewinds, watches the tape feed back to the other side of the cassette. Click. The hazy outro plays, crackles slightly but sounds alright all the way up to-
"And that was >Don't you (Forget About Me)< by Simple Minds, thanks for tuning in to radio-," says the smooth voice of the radio host, ruining Chanyeol's attempt again.
He slumps over his cassette player and begrudgingly rewinds the tape back to the start of the song so he can re-record it when it hopefully plays again later.
Being a broke college student, he simply can't own every single album with a song he needs for his mixtape.
The radio method is proving really frustrating, though, and Chanyeol turns it off, white-hot annoyance making him drop this attempt.
He pouts for all but five minutes but then he remembers that Rabbit Records should be open by now and perks up. Surely, Junmyeon will be able to help!
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There’s a jazzy guitar riff that plays when Chanyeol opens the door to the music store, Junmyeon’s newest add-on to the charming little shop. Chanyeol thinks it’s a little cheesy but Junmyeon says it “makes or breaks the shopping experience. You wouldn’t get it Yeol.”
And Junmyeon seems to be doing something right at least. There are several people in the store when Chanyeol enters, some older gentlemen, a few schoolgirls, and Minseok, of course, local punk and music connoisseur.
Chanyeol is more of a classic rock type-of-guy but he can respect Minseok and his extreme taste in music. He does look pretty awesome with his mohawk and his jean vest, full of patches and small badges of his favorite bands and some political statements.
Minseok was the first guy Chanyeol ever kissed in a game of spin the bottle and also the first guy who explained to poor confused little Chanyeol what exactly the rainbow on his vest meant (and why Chanyeol might need one, too).
Chanyeol had held a flame for him for about two months until he realized that Minseok and Junmyeon, both a few years older than him, were a bit too interested in each other and the rest was history.
Now he just meets Minseok bumming around Junmyeon’s shop. Sometimes when he’s feeling cheeky, he tries to catch them in embarrassing moments in the stock room. Secretly, he thinks, that’s why Junmyeon installed the guitar riff doorbell.
“Hey Yeollie,” Minseok greets him with his charming, crooked smile. His hair is a vibrant blue today and he’s wearing safety pins as earrings. Chanyeol shudders at the thought of poking himself in the ear, then smiles over at Minseok.
“Hey Hyung,” he says, not surprised to see Minseok thumbing through the newest Brit-punk vinyl collection.
“And what about your other Hyung, hm?” Junmyeon pipes up, organizing some cassette tapes a few steps off to the side.
“Hello, other Hyung. My favorite, kindest, most good-looking Hyung of all…” Chanyeol gushes, and makes his eyes huge and round in a way that he knows reminds people of a puppy.
Junmyeon scoffs at him while Minseok raises an offended brow and goes back to going through the records.
“What do you want, Chanyeol?” Junmyeon asks matter-of-factly.
Chanyeol sniffs and turns, lifts up a record disinterestedly, and pretends to look at it.
“Can’t I just compliment my Junmyeonnie-Hyung without having any ulterior motives,” he mumbles.
“You could,” Junmyeon agrees, “but you wouldn’t. What do you need, Yeollie?”
Junmyeon can be a bit awkward and snippy, but he’s a good friend, which is why Chanyeol came in the first place.
His bellbottoms and long hair remind Chanyeol of his childhood and his kind smile does, too.
Chanyeol wordlessly hands him his cassette tape as well as his list of songs, some crossed out, some written in bright red ink.
“Ah,” Junmyeon nods sagely and Minseok stops pretending he’s not interested in the ongoings and peers on the list over Junmyeon’s shoulder. He smiles and looks like a cat when he does.
“This for JD?” Minseok asks, then giggles, “Really, Yeol? Every Breath You Take ? You’re such a cheeseball.”
Chanyeol can feel his neck and ears go red-hot with embarrassment and scrunches his nose in Minseok’s direction.
“Why would it be for Jongdae…” he mumbles and brings a hand up to bite at his nails, “and it’s a good song, you’re just a music snob.”
“Well, Yeollie, if you want me to let you use my samplers to stitch this little lovey-dovey thing together, maybe it’d be wise not to insult my boyfriend right in front of me,” Junmyeon teases.
Chanyeol splutters but Junmyeon laughs and waves him off.
“Alright listen. If you do a shift next week on Tuesday and close the store so I can go out with Min to that new bar on the corner, you can grab the songs you need for your little confession tape. What do you say?” Junmyeon relents and Chanyeol nods so hard he almost goes dizzy.
Minseok and Junmyeon grin at him and Chanyeol is fond of them for a second, happy that they’ve found each other.
Then, Minseok has to ruin it by saying, “This is the gayest thing I’ve ever seen, by the way. Well done, he’ll love it.”
Chanyeol flees into the stockroom to find the samplers he needs, chased by their bright laughter.
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Chanyeol does much better without the constant frustration of radio hosts interrupting his recordings. The stockroom holds hundreds of samplers and after a bit of searching, he finds every song he had on his list except one.
It’s fine, though. He doesn’t have money for a ton of records but Queen’s A Night at the Opera is one of his most loved albums and the live recording of Love of My Life from Argentina will be his final track on the tape.
He spends the evening slowly filling his cassette with his favorite love songs, hoping that they’ll be able to convey his message properly.
While the songs play, he has ample time to imagine Jongdae’s reaction. He didn’t want to give Minseok the satisfaction of being right, but of course, the tape is meant for Jongdae. Chanyeol’s best friend and (not so) secret crush. He’s not sure, sometimes, if Jongdae knows about his crush, and might even like him back.
Jongdae is an enigma sometimes. He peers up at Chanyeol through his long, long lashes, smiles at him with that charming mouth of his, touches him freely and often. Other times Jongdae looks at him, really looks at him, as if he can see right into Chanyeol’s mind, into the deepest, darkest parts of his brain just like that. Then the next moment, he’ll be gone again, off to hang off of another friend.
He’s friends with Junmyeon and Minseok too, so at least Chanyeol knows he won’t be offended by another boy liking him. The world feels more liberal at college, surrounded by open-minded peers most of the time, but homophobia is still rampant- just last week Chanyeol had to help scrub off a slur painted on the front door of the shop.
Chanyeol spends the better part of What I like About You by The Romantics thinking about how Jongdae would look in his big letterman jacket, PARK 61 on his back in huge letters.
It’s almost 6 p.m. by the time he finally finishes most of his mixtape. Junmyeon peers into the stockroom a few times, smiles at him bobbing his head to Should I Stay or Should I Go , and then ushers him out when he finds him just lounging around looking at upcoming releases.
Before he leaves, Minseok hands him a little piece of paper, perfectly cut and folded to fit into the cassette case.
“For your tracklist and other secret messages,” he smiles, broken-off star-emblem of some Mercedes on his vest glinting in the low light of the shop.
Chanyeol smiles at him and pulls him into a hug, angling his head so the spikes of his mohawk won’t poke him in the eye.
“Bye guys, thank you!” he calls into the store and then makes his way home, a bounce in his steps.
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Chanyeol is no artist, but when he looks at the self-drawn cover of his mixtape, he feels a weird sense of pride fluttering in his chest. Or maybe it’s just his nerves, going crazy at what he’s about to do.
He had called over the landline the evening before, asking Jongdae to meet him at Chanyeol’s place the next day.
Jongdae can never resist the tempting promise of playing on Chanyeol’s brand-new NES gaming system so it wasn’t hard to convince him to come over at all. Though Chanyeol suspects that Jongdae would’ve come, no matter the reason.
Chanyeol is just about to bite his fingers to shreds when the doorbell rings, the shrill noise cutting through the low sound of his old Beatles record playing in the background.
He stumbles over to the door, opens it, and oofs at Jongdae throwing himself into his chest in a hug.
“Hey Yeollie,” Jongdae chirps up at him, wide grin on his face and chin resting on Chanyeol’s chest. Chanyeol can’t help but smile back.
Jongdae bustles in as if he lives there, kicking his shoes off and towards the shoe rack after he breaks out of Chanyeol’s hug.
When Chanyeol finally manages to break out of his stupor, he follows Jongdae into the apartment and finds him lounging on Chanyeol’s old, ratty couch, feet propped up on his coffee table and soda can in his hand. He looks perfectly at home, snuggled into Chanyeol’s throw pillows, toes wagging in time with the music still playing.
“Alright, boot it up,” Jongdae says, smiling and gesturing at the NES.
“Actually,” Chanyeol starts and fidgets a bit, “I want to show you something first.”
Better to just get it over with, right?
Jongdae perks up, his fluffy mullet kind of flat on top from the hat he had been wearing in the chill of early fall. He looks so silly, traces of silver eyeshadow from the night before still clinging to his lids and Chanyeol is in love with him.
Before he can really overthink it, he grabs the small cassette off his stereo and chucks it over to Jongdae who catches it easily.
“A tape? For me?” he says happily, studying Chanyeol’s attempt at drawing the moon and the sun on the cover.
“Yeah,” Chanyeol mumbles, “kind of a pain to get all these songs so I hope you appreciate it.”
Jongdae ooh s in excitement and flips open the case. He takes out the tape and holds it out towards Chanyeol without looking at him and Chanyeol just grabs it, puts it into his music system, and plays it.
Jongdae has put the case away in the meantime and pats the space next to him on the couch in clear invitation.
“Come here, Yeollie. I wanna listen to it together without seeing the tracklist first. What’s the theme you were going for?”
It’s one of these moments that Chanyeol sometimes can’t explain, doesn’t know if Jongdae is just kidding and trying to embarrass him or if he’s being earnest. He flushes anyway and flops down next to Jongdae, who leans into his arm as Ain’t No Mountain High Enough starts blaring from Chanyeol’s stereo speakers.
Jongdae makes little noises of excitement for every song that starts playing, says things like “Oh, I love this song,” or, “What an awesome riff,” or, “I love this type of synthesizer,” grabbing onto Chanyeol’s arm whenever a song he really likes comes on.
Only when the intro to Love of My Life starts playing, he quiets down and Chanyeol isn’t sure if he’s about to explode from fear making his heart pound or embarrassment making him flush bright red when Jongdae stares up at him.
His mouth is tilted down in thought but the longer the song plays, the more his lips curl up in a brighter and brighter smile.
The last notes ring out from the guitar and the audience of the live recording cheers and Jongdae is beaming up at Chanyeol.
“You’re so lame,” is all he manages to say through delighted laughter, and then he presses a kiss right to Chanyeol’s frown.
All the way at the bottom of the booklet in the cassette case there’s a tiny message scrawled under the various love songs of the tracklist.
for JD - from CY with ♥ .