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There are certain things Chenle is allowed to do that no one else is.
Yangyang opens the door and the muted bustle inside the apartment immediately explodes into slightly more coherent screaming and extremely grating laughter. Chenle can perfectly hear the teasing tone in every single syllable coming from the living room, obscured by the door and the adjacent wall, and it immediately sours his mood.
He doesn’t even need to see it.
“Oh,” Yangyang says as he steps back, letting Chenle walk into the dorm so he can rid himself of his jacket and shoes in the entryway. “Hi, Lele,” he says.
His smile takes up half his face like it usually does, but tonight it’s even brighter. He’s obviously holding back the excitement as much as he can, the giddiness. Chenle knows that feeling very well. He remembers.
Yangyang looks at him expectantly, almost vibrating in place as he waits for Chenle to do the completely normal and predictable thing in a situation like this. And maybe Chenle’s being a little bit of an asshole, he knows, he should hurry up and close the space between them; let Yangyang bounce on the balls of his feet within the circle of his arm as he congratulates him for the hard work.
God knows he deserves it.
They all do.
But he can hear Hendery yelling in the background, and Kun’s name is resonating between the walls of the dorm too frequently for Chenle’s liking, steeped in sarcasm and disrespect. And he can only grind his teeth and give Yangyang a quick one-armed hug and a smile that he knows looks fake but he can’t bring himself to correct.
No one even calls Chenle that to his face anymore.
Everyone in the living room freezes and falls into an awkward silence as soon as they see him, and Chenle’s eyes immediately zero in on Kun on one corner of the couch.
There are alcohol bottles strewn around, and Chenle side-eyes the packet of cigarettes that’s open in the middle of the coffee table. The urge to immediately tell Kun he better not be the one with his lips around them is fortunately stomped down his stomach in favor of a more appropriate greeting to break the silence.
“Congratulations on the win, you guys,” Chenle says, trying to inject his words with as much enthusiasm as he can muster.
And it works, just slightly. The noise in the room reignites in thank you’s and expressions of relief. And Chenle should be happier for them, he should be celebrating with them, genuinely, he—better than anyone else—knows how much this means to them, how hard they’ve worked for it, how many times they’ve been fucked over.
But now he’s just uncomfortable, and annoyed. He should’ve just done this another time.
“You want a drink, baby?” Ten offers from the opposite side of the couch, with what seems like his not-first drink in his hand.
Chenle almost wishes he would call him Lele too.
Because Ten stares at him with an almost resigned—but just as fake—smile, and that look in his eye that shows he already knows why Chenle is here, and he’s okay with it. He’s giving up.
No, he’s only allowing it.
And he knows that if Chenle were interested in a drink, he’d be the last person he’d go to for it.
He’d be the last person Chenle would go to for anything.
“No, thank you, Ten,” he says, smiling sweetly his way. A way better act than Ten’s himself, of course, because even though he knows what it means, Chenle doesn’t really need the whole group to be aware of it too. “I was just dropping by to give Kun something,” he shakes the gift bag hanging from his fingers and glances at him.
Luckily Kun never misses anything, even if he often pretends he does. He stands up from his spot on the couch, leaving his own glass of liquor abandoned on the table and making his way to his bedroom so Chenle can follow.
The hoots and whistles that burst behind them as they walk away only work to put him even more on edge.
Chenle closes the door behind them as Kun makes his way towards the window and starts drawing the blinds closed with a habitual familiarity that doesn’t help ease Chenle’s discomfort.
He leaves the gift bag on the nightstand closest to him and looks around the room, rearranged since the last time he was here. It’s now exclusively filled with Kun’s own things and no one else’s, not another member’s using the room as a storage unit, no feline tenants’ amenities.
None of the things Chenle has left behind and set in plain view of whoever walks in after he’s gone.
“You didn’t mention me in your speech,” Chenle comments, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans and garnering all his efforts to try and sound lighthearted.
Kun laughs. He laughs, and pushes his hair away from his face, combing it back to uncover his forehead as he sits sideways on the edge of the opposite side of the bed.
“Why would I do that?” Kun asks, still laughing, still smiling.
He looks so tired, his back immediately hunching when he settles on the mattress. Tired and like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders at the same time. Tired not from Chenle being here and poking at him, not from the clearly long night of drinks, or even the performance; tired of being tired.
Chenle can tell what it is. He gets it.
The feeling of being able to relax. Just for a second.
Striving for something, suffering so much to get it, stressing themselves into ulcers, breaking down when they can’t quite reach.
Trying until they can finally feel it, with their limbs stretched out to their limit and the pads of their fingers barely grazing it.
It might not be the Grammy’s. But it is something. And no one, not even Chenle, can understand the magnitude of it after everything that has happened.
“Oh, you know,” Chenle shrugs, he grabs the bag again and walks around the bed until he’s standing next to Kun on the other side of it. “Your biggest inspiration and all that,” he explains, handing Kun his gift as he continues talking, “light of your life, the best thing that has ever happened—“ he sits next to Kun on the bed, hip to hip, and he shoves his elbow into the side of his ribs for good measure.
“Brat,” Kun huffs, interrupting his rambling as he analyzes the gift bag in his hands.
“Why didn’t you call?” Chenle mumbles.
Because that’s the entire reason he’s here to begin with.
Chenle had waited for his phone to ring after Kun was done with their winning speech, the performance, and the second even longer string of gratitudes he delivered to the press. He had it all calculated in his head for Kun to call him as soon as he was back in the dressing room. So they could scream into each other’s ears. That he had won.
But thirty minutes later, the call never came.
And neither did an hour later.
Or five.
And if Kun had only called at some point since then, Chenle would’ve saved his gift and everything he had to tell him for another day and stayed home.
“Why didn’t you?” Kun asks as he slips the black box out of the bag, squared and emblazoned in gold with the name of the brand.
He examines the box for a second before slowly lifting the lid and putting it to the side.
It’s just a watch.
Subtle and understated, expensive, with a black leather strap and a silver case, thin hands and a thinner dial. Kun runs the pad of his thumb across the crystal and carefully avoids the crown. Chenle had it set at the correct time by the man at the store, which Kun clearly notices.
He takes it out of the velvety cushion lining the inside of the box and hands it to Chenle without analyzing it further, his left hand stretched out between them so Chenle can slide it on for him.
It has an actual buckle with a tongue, not one of those clasps that can be put on one-handed, because Kun is old-fashioned like that.
And because Chenle knew he’d ask him to help.
“I called you after my first win,” Chenle continues, tightening the strap around Kun’s wrist until he can slip the buckle at the height of the right hole. He makes sure the leather is snug around Kun’s pale skin but slips his finger under it to ensure it’s not too tight anyway.
The bed of his fingernail drags across the veins on his pulse point, and Kun stops himself from squirming.
Chenle was fifteen back then, and he didn’t have access to a personal non-supervised phone.
And yet he still called Kun. And they screamed into each other’s ears. That he had won.
He was still “angel” back then, and “baby”—without any layer of sardonicism behind it—, and “Lele” in public.
“I’m proud of you,” Chenle says, an echo of what Kun had muttered into the phone that time, still petting over the soft skin of Kun’s wrist. “I’m really happy that you won.”
“You don’t look happy,” Kun mutters with another tired chuckle.
And it comes back over him in a split second, like a cloud that won’t go away. He lets go of Kun’s hands as he feels the irritation brewing in him spike up his esophagus, and he starts messing with the watch’s packaging to keep his hands busy.
“No, I was—I am!” He corrects, and then he groans in frustration.
He shrugs and moves away from Kun, shifting a couple of inches to the side, still sitting on the bed. He throws his hands up in the air and lets himself fall back onto the mattress, with his legs still dangling off the edge.
Kun carefully puts away all the discarded parts of his gift and lies next to him, accompanying him in his quiet ceiling-staring.
“You’re mad I didn’t call you?” He asks.
Yes.
“No,” Chenle sighs, before breathing in deep again and marching on. “I was happy for you until I got here,” he confesses.
“Chenle, you know I would’ve invited you, but it’s a group—,” Kun starts explaining, sounding guilty and like he thinks Chenle is being unreasonable at the same time.
“No, what?” Chenle interrupts, turning on his side to look at Kun next to him. “I’m not mad you didn’t invite me to your…” he stammers, his hands waving in front of him as he tries to find the word, “party.” He lands on, unhelpfully. “I’m not a child,”
Kun turns to look at him and lies on his side too, mirroring Chenle’s position in front of him. His face is inscrutable.
He doesn’t even look tired anymore, not happy, not sad. He stares at Chenle like he’s not even here.
“You’re not,” he says, hardened.
And it sounds like a demand.
“I was mad because I heard the way they talk to you,” Chenle finally says, and Kun’s face immediately pinches into a confused frown, the wall of cold steel over his eyes fades away and in its place, a soft curiosity takes over. “They’re always making fun of you,”
Chenle feels his own brows furrowing, the upset he was feeling earlier coming back full force just at the mere thought of it. Heavier from all the time he’s thought about it and held himself back from ever expressing.
But Kun breaks into almost incredulous laughter. The rigid lines of his body melt into the memory foam under them, and his bleached hair falls back over his forehead as the skin around his eyes wrinkles with the way his cheekbones are pushed up with his smile.
“Chenle,” Kun says with a sigh, “you always make fun of me too.” He reminds him.
It’s his turn to be confused.
Chenle frowns. And he scans Kun’s face as he looks at him, patiently waiting for him to understand what he means.
And he does. He understands, but—
“That’s different,” he refutes.
“How is it different?” Kun asks.
And suddenly it feels like they’re somewhere else entirely. Someplace, sometime, away from here. Kun looks at him with the usual tenderness that always floods his pupils—or used to—and he smiles at him sweetly, serene, indulgent. He brings his hand up between them and pushes his thumb across Chenle’s brows, smoothing out the muscles of his forehead until he stops frowning.
He’s warm as usual, soft as always, gentle as ever.
The room is quiet.
Kun’s bed has always been his favorite.
“‘Cause,” Chenle starts before stopping himself, trying to find a way to respond to the accusations. “‘Cause it’s me,” he says, frustrated.
He doesn’t need any explanation beyond that.
Chenle can do things that no one else can, because he’s him.
“Mhm,” Kun acknowledges, but doesn’t react otherwise, and instead he drags his knuckles down the side of Chenle’s face and softly rubs his cheek back and forth with them. “I didn’t call you because I was crying,” he confesses.
A wave of warm endearment swells inside Chenle’s chest like a balloon that’s about to fly out from his mouth, and right behind it comes the itchy urge to do something, say something. The same restless feeling he gets every time Kun does anything; when he’s being cute, when he’s angry, when he does something dumb.
And it clicks.
He pushes himself closer to Kun on the bed and throws his arms over his shoulders before pushing his face into the crook of his neck with a giggle.
“I’m not going to make fun of you,” he declares, pressing his mouth against the skin of Kun’s throat to stop his smile from getting any bigger, stifling the bubbles of laughter climbing up his own larynx.
“Oh why, thank you very much,” Kun says, his words dripping in sarcasm like he didn’t tell Chenle that just to prove his point, and he wraps his arms around Chenle’s waist to bring him closer.
Chenle feels himself arching his back to accommodate him, stretching out his spine like he’s just waking up, and he drags his mouth up Kun’s jaw and under his ear so he can whisper, “I would never make fun of you for crying.”
“And why is that?” Kun keeps pressing, clearly prepared for Chenle to finally start teasing him.
But Chenle only pulls away slightly to look him in the eye, and he pushes him back down on the mattress so he can hover over him, their fronts still pressed against each other, Kun’s arms around him not budging for a second.
“You’re just so pretty when you cry,” he whispers, his eyes stuck on the way Kun’s lips twitch nervously.
They’ve always been perfect. Like pressed petals on eggshells.
A tiny dimple sinks into Kun’s cheek, right next to the corner of his mouth, and his Adam’s apple jumps up and down as he swallows down his own laughter. He turns them over so Chenle’s the one with his back pressed against the blankets this time and he’s the one leaning over him. He slips one of his hands out from under his body to carefully comb Chenle’s hair away from his face.
“I don’t remember the last time I saw you cry,” he mumbles, lost in thought, nostalgic.
If Kun has been paying attention, it was way too recently.
If he hasn’t, two years ago.
In this same bed.
“Surely you’re prettier,” he continues.
He still seems to be looking right through Chenle’s eyes, staring at something that’s not even here with them, something far far away. But his eyes subconsciously move across every inch of his face, his hand flying away from Chenle’s hair and landing back on his jaw this time, holding his chin between his thumb and index finger.
“Is that a challenge?” Chenle goads, his voice coming out way too breathy for the tone he was trying to hit. He throws one of his legs up and over Kun’s hip, dragging him down and making him collapse on top of him to distract him from it.
But Kun catches himself with one hand on the bed, right next to Chenle’s head, and the fingers around his face only tighten.
“What kind of challenge would that be?” Kun laughs.
Chenle wraps his fingers around Kun’s wrist, over his newly gifted watch, while his other hand sneaks between them and around Kun’s waist, grabbing onto his t-shirt and slowly dragging it up his torso.
“The first one to make the other cry wins,” Chenle whispers.
Something shifts in Kun’s dark eyes, like he’s made a decision. Like he’s giving up.
No, like he’s only allowing it.
“No playing dirty,” Kun warns as he closes the distance between them, his nose pressing into the side of Chenle’s face. His breath falls like a blanket over his skin, from the edge of his jaw all the way down his neck. “You’ve broken my heart before,” he reminds him.