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chenpionships2014-09-19 04:26 pm
lordchen) wrote in chenpionships2014-09-19 04:26 pm
#261: aestivation: here we lie, skin against skin
Prompt: #261
Title: aestivation: here we lie, skin against skin
Pairing: chen/luhan
Rating: pg
Word count: ~10k
Summary: post-disbandment!exo. the path in front of them splits eleven ways. jongdae’s too afraid to take a step forward, but he doesn’t realise that his and luhan’s merge in the middle.
aestivation | estivation, n.
Pronunciation:ɛstɪˈveɪʃəniːstɪˈveɪʃən
It’s a miracle that they survived almost four years after Yifan’s leave, actually. If SM had their way EXO would merely be put on hiatus while two or three members get sent into the army, but everyone felt that it would be better to just disband. They’ve spent more time away than together, and even their fans were starting to dissipate into individual members or other groups. While their first concert had sold out in less than two seconds, their fourth had taken vicious advertising on their part on social media before it had finally sold out two days before the actual concert.
Looking back, Jongdae felt that that had been an indication of the beginning of an end. Standing on stage looking out at a sea of silver lights with ten others didn’t seem as magical anymore, and he wasn’t the only one who’d felt that way.
“Hyung, you shouldn’t light up here,” he calls out when he sees Junmyeon out in the shadows, cig between his fingers. They’re in a small alley at the back of a stadium in Bangkok, and anyone who was spirited enough would be able to poke a DSLR through the giant trucks around them and snap a picture. Junmyeon didn’t seem to care, though, taking another drag and straightening himself when he sees Jongdae near.
“There’s no one here,” he says.
“There might be,” Jongdae insists. He grabs Junmyeon’s elbow and drags him back inside the stadium. Junmyeon follows with a sigh, letting the cig fall between his fingers and stubbing it out with his heel.
“Two more weeks,” Junmyeon mutters.
“Yes,” Jongdae grits out. “So let’s just.” He pauses, his words not quite falling into place in his head. Hang in there? Not fuck up before then? “Get it done and over with.”
SM had called for a press conference the day before their encore concert in Seoul. There’d been a heavy atmosphere between them ever since they’d come to a decision to disband after the tour was over.
Go out with a bang, not with a whimper, Jongdae supposes.
Jongdae poses for the cameras, his eyes flitting from lens to lens, his movements almost instinctual after years of being an idol. He waves, then takes his seat next to Minseok. At the end of the row, Zitao is stiff, his hands still on his lap and his eyebrows furrowed as he scans the press. Jongdae wonders if he was tired, having to tour while filming. He wonders if he felt relieved when they’d decided on disbanding, like a heavy burden being removed from his shoulders.
There’s an outline they have to follow for the press conference. Junmyeon talks about the different countries they’ve been to, Baekhyun and Chanyeol chipping in with little anecdotes. They’d tossed the responsibility to drop the bomb around them during their meeting a couple of weeks ago, before Minseok had finally stepped in and said that he’d say it, no problem.
Jongdae swallows. There’s not much time till they drop the news. Yixing wraps up whatever they’ve said about the tour. Someone asks when their next album is, and Minseok stiffens next to Jongdae.
“There won’t be another album,” he says, cutting straight to the point. “We’ve spoken a lot about this, both with each other and the company.” There’s a pause. Jongdae can tell that his hands are shaking under the table.
“EXO is disbanding.”
Sehun is curled up in the corner of the sofa, scrolling on his iPad, Jongin looking over his shoulder. They have identical worried expressions – eyebrows furrowed and mouth set into a thin line, eyes scanning line after line of text – and Jongdae knows that they’re probably reading fans’ reactions to the news.
“Some of them are taking it quite well,” Sehun says after a moment, straightening his back and pushing his iPad to Jongin. “Some are distraught, though.”
“Understandable,” Lu Han mumbles. He’s playing with his earphones, twirling the cable lazily, occasionally glancing at the iPad.
At the other side of the room, Kyungsoo gets up from his chair and walks out into the corridor. Jongdae watches at Lu Han grabs the iPad from Jongin, his lips turning down into a frown the more he scrolls, and feels his stomach clench. He gets up and leaves the room as well.
Kyungsoo’s gripping a paper cup at the end in the corridor. Jongdae grabs his own cup and fills it with water from the dispenser, then joins him.
They stand in silence for a while, before Kyungsoo finally looks up and nods at Jongdae.
“What are you going to do after this?” He asks.
Jongdae shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m still figuring it out.”
“You could go solo,” he says. “Use whatever remnants of EXO’s popularity, make it your own.”
Jongdae shakes his head. “Jongin’s doing that. I’m not going to take that away from him.”
The corners of Kyungsoo’s lips tug up into a smile. “You know you could. If it were between you and Jongin you know you’d win out.” It’s not accusatory. Kyungsoo’s teasing.
Jongdae smiles as well. “I know. What I don’t know is if going solo is what I want.”
“Figure it out,” Kyungsoo says. “We can do anything we want from now on.”
“Yeah,” Jongdae agrees. “We can.”
Jongdae drives back to Siheung the day after the concert. He doesn’t bring much, just a small duffel bag with some gifts for his family. He thinks of Minseok as he drives – they’d shared a small apartment ever since it was clear that the rest of M wasn’t going to be in Seoul much, the company-paid dorm too huge and too empty for them both.
“When are you enlisting?” Jongdae asks Minseok that morning. They’d had breakfast together – instant rice and instant soup and reheated pajeon and chicken from two days ago – and it somehow calms Jongdae, that he’d always have Minseok as a friend even if they were no longer bandmates.
“Tomorrow,” Minseok answers, and Jongdae almost chokes on his rice.
“What?! That’s too soon!”
Minseok shrugs. “I didn’t want anyone to know. Don’t come to send me off, Jongdae.”
“You can’t tell me not to do that, hyung. I want to.”
“I don’t want you to,” Minseok says firmly. “Spend time with your family. Be there for all of Yoojung’s firsts.”
Jongdae frowns. He didn’t need to be there for all of Yoojung’s firsts to see them – his brother and sister-in-law were the type to send him pictures at least five times a day. He highly doubted that the toddler would be much different if he were to go back to Siheung a day later, but Minseok had been insistent.
“I really don’t want any fuss,” he said. “I’m tired.”
Aren’t we all, Jongdae thinks.
The next few weeks crawl past. Jongdae sleeps a lot more, meets up with his friends from high school, plays with his niece, and picks up cooking and baking from his mother and sister-in-law. The EXO group chat on KakaoTalk slows down, then trickles down to a handful of messages a day.
EXO’s sixth anniversary comes and goes a little more than three weeks after they disband. Their fans release a whole bunch of tributes online, of happy times and sad times and hard times, and Jongdae watches every single one with an odd sense of detachment. There’s a video that shows them all from predebut through the years, with Jongdae looking jittery onstage before his 2011 Gayo Daejun performance. He remembers feeling so very nervous and so very happy at the same time, his stomach swirling with a myriad of emotions that he’d felt a little nauseous and couldn’t eat.
Lu Han had refused to let him perform hungry, though. He’d pressed a cup into Jongdae’s hands and told him to eat. It had been a bit of rice mixed in with a lot of soup, and was also cold, since lunch had passed long before, but it warmed up Jongdae’s insides all the same.
There had been so much between them – they’d gone from friends to lovers and back, and out of all of EXO, Lu Han was the one person that Jongdae could say he knew inside out. It had hurt him when they’d drifted in the middle of 2014.
Yifan had taken more than just a few belongings when he left EXO, and till today, Jongdae could never really tell what was gone, all he knew was that there was this gaping chasm that none of them could bridge. All they could do was tiptoe around it and hope that they wouldn’t lose their footing and fall in.
They’d just come back from a tiring fansign in Beijing when they’d had That Talk. Lu Han hadn’t been too eager to slide under Jongdae’s covers, hesitating when Jongdae had patted the empty space in his bed.
“Hyung, what’s wrong?” Jongdae had asked, when Lu Han turned away with the premise of going over to his dresser to look for something.
The silence stretched out for a while, and Jongdae could see that Lu Han’s shoulders were tense. He was holding something back, something that was very important to him, but something that he couldn’t share very easily. Jongdae knew then that things between them were about to change.
“We need to talk,” Lu Han said eventually.
Jongdae doesn’t remember much of the conversation, only that they’d agreed to take a break. It felt odd to lose themselves in each other, especially when their bandmates were still struggling to come to terms with everything that had happened. It hadn’t been easy to stay away from Lu Han at first, since they were roommates and he was right there. The sex was good, as it always was, but neither of them could rid of the odd, bitter feeling of betrayal that stuck to them long after.
Eventually they, too, drifted, and all Jongdae could do was watch Lu Han from afar and feel his insides twist with desire and love and loss.
Yoojung’s starting to walk, which means that they have to keep a close eye on her at all times. She totters along, barrelling into everything that gets in her way, and has even managed to give herself a few bumps on her head and bruises on her limbs as a result, since they can’t seem to grab her before she collides into a piece of furniture or a wall.
Jongdae and Jongdeok are sitting boneless on the couch, tired after chasing Yoojung around the house. She has calmed down since, playing on her playmat with a bunch of soft toys, and the brothers watch her wearily, praying that she would fall asleep soon.
“Don’t ever get anyone pregnant,” Jongdeok says. “It’s not fun.”
“You tell me that now, but soon Yoojung will say pa again and you’ll tell me to quickly find someone to procreate with,” Jongdae replies.
“I never said that,” Jongdeok says, but he’s grinning. Jongdae turns to him and raises his eyebrow, and he laughs. “Fine. It’s fun and Yoojung is a blessing.” He pauses, and Jongdae thinks he’s done talking, but then he adds.
“But we both know that you probably won’t get anyone pregnant,” he turns to give Jongdae a small smile. “And that’s okay, Jongdae.”
Jongdae’s stunned. He’d never told his family that he preferred guys. He’d had girlfriends in the past, and was happy with letting them assume that he’d settle down and get married someday.
“Don’t give me that look. I knew. About Lu Han.”
Jongdae sputtered, and Jongdeok laughed. “How?” He asks.
Jongdeok shrugs. “I saw the way you kept looking at him. I’ve known you your whole life, baby bro, so it didn’t take much for me to figure it out.”
Yoojung chooses that instant to get up and make her way to the kitchen, and Jongdae doesn’t manage to ask Jongdeok what else he’d figured out, or if their parents knew. He doesn’t get a chance to bring up the conversation again for the rest of the evening, and goes to bed with a million thoughts squirming around in his head.
He can’t sleep, so he nabs his phone by the bedside table and checks for any new messages. There’s a couple in the EXO chat, so he opens that up.
Jongin
tony testa is working with me again! he wants to meet us all for dinner to catch up
Jongin
when is everyone free????
Zitao
filming in hong kong till july :’( sry
Zitao
eat lots of meat for me
Zitao
esp beef
Lu Han
me too. sorry :(
Jongdae feels his heart sink a little. Lu Han probably won’t be in the country for a long while, then, and since they weren’t bandmates anymore he wouldn’t need to go back for EXO.
Jongdae doesn't reply. He locks his phone, places it on his bedside table, then faces his back to it.
May passes and June comes without much fanfare. It’s been almost three months since EXO disbanded, and everyone seems to be adjusting. Minseok’s doing well in the army, choosing to be an active duty soldier and getting stationed in a military camp south of Jeju after his Basic Military Training. Chanyeol’s globetrotting in yet another variety show, and Sehun’s gotten a spot as a regular on Saturday Night Live. Junmyeon and Yixing seem to be emceeing in even more shows that it’s hard for Jongdae to keep track. He flips the channel and Junmyeon’s there, and switches to another and it him again in an ad for another show. It’s the same for Yixing when he switches over to Chinese cable channels. Baekhyun’s starting rehearsals for another musical, and Lu Han and Zitao are filming their sitcoms and movie respectively. Jongin’s wrapping up his prep for his solo debut, and Kyungsoo’s apparently gone back to school.
Meanwhile, Jongdae’s learning how to knead dough and make bread. He’d never thought of himself as a domestic type of person, but here he is balancing Yoojung on his hip while checking on the dough resting in the fridge.
“Not as big as I’d like,” he tells her. She babbles at him, throwing her hands happily in the air. He laughs, and smacks a kiss on her forehead. “That’s right! It’ll grow bigger soon, so we’ll leave it alone.”
Sooyeon comes into the kitchen then, fresh from her shower and looking a little less tired than she did when she’d gotten back from work. Yoojung reaches out for her, and Jongdae hands her over, flicking her nose when she’s nestled in her mother’s arms.
“One of my new colleagues is a huge fan of yours,” she says conversationally as they flit around the kitchen to prep for dinner. “She wonders what you’re doing now, since you’re one of the few out of the public eye.”
“You should tell her I’m busy changing diapers and chopping vegetables,” Jongdae says, reaching out to grab the carrots she’s washed.
“She doesn’t know I married your brother,” Sooyeon laughs. “Though I can’t imagine her reaction if I ever tell her you’ve been domesticated.”
Jongdae laughs too. It’s a joke within their family – that EXO’s Chen has been domesticated by a one-year-old and never ending household chores ever since the disbandment – but Jongdae can’t imagine sharing it with anyone else. It’s private, and simply a means for him to fulfill the obligations he’d selfishly left behind when he was an idol.
“What are you going to do?” Sooyeon asks suddenly. She rinses her hands in the sink and turns to face him, resting her hip against the counter. “Once you’ve rested.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re resting now,” she says, then narrows her eyes. “Aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Jongdae says softly. He really doesn’t.
Jongdae likes being home. He likes taking care of Yoojung while her parents are at work, and helping out his parents around the house. His mother is happy he’s home, eager to teach him all the dishes she knows so he can cook while she catches up with all the dramas she’s ever wanted to. It’s fun and new and interesting at first, but it gets a little mundane after a while. Jongdae’s itching to do something, but he’s doesn’t even know what that something is, so he squashes down the urge and goes about his daily routine.
“Don’t you want to sing again?” His brother asks him one evening.
“I don’t know,” Jongdae replies honestly, after mulling it over. “I miss singing, but all the add-ons that come with it,” he waves his hand vaguely in the air. “All that idol stuff, not so much.”
“You don’t need to be an idol,” Jongdeok says. “Isn’t Baekhyun doing musicals?”
“They still consider him an idol, though,” Jongdae tells him. “Once you become an idol, there’s no ridding yourself of that label. You’ll always be an idol to the public.”
“Doesn’t mean you should just stop singing, though,” Jongdeok reasons. “You should think about what you really want, Jongdae.”
“Maybe you should travel for a bit,” his mother suggests. “Get out of the country. Give yourself a change of scenery, a breath of fresh air.”
Jongdae liked the sound of that, but he didn’t know where to go. “I don’t think I’d want to stray too far though. I don’t want to have to deal with a new culture and all that.”
“China?” Sooyeon suggests. “I know you went there to work a lot, but you’d probably see the country in a different light without work in the way.”
Jongda mulls it over, playing with Yoojung’s blocks idly, stacking them up one on top of another before she squeals and knocks them all over. “I’ll miss Yoojung, though. She’ll miss me too,” He says.
Jongdeok snorts. “You’re spoiling her rotten, don't you realise? Maybe you should go to China after all. Stay with Lu Han or something.”
The mention of Lu Han’s name has Jongdae straightening himself. Jongdae hasn’t heard from him since their encore concert, since he’d taken a flight out the next morning and merely showed his face at the after party, taking a few bites before leaving, saying that he was exhausted.
Jongdae really wants to see him again.
Hey ge, Jongdae types, then pauses. I was thinking of going to Beijing for a short holiday.
His finger stills above the keyboard. Could you suggest a hotel for me to stay in? Didn’t sound right, especially when they’d stayed in so many hotels beforehand.
He settles for When are you free? We could go for coffee or something., then presses send and closes the app before he can regret sending it.
Not wanting to look at his phone, Jongdae leaves his room to find Yoojung, but she’s out for some two-on-one time with her grandparents, and he’s all alone in the house. He turns on the television and flicks idly through the channels, spotting his ex-bandmates and labelmates as they go about their jobs as idols.
As much as Jongdae doesn’t want to go back, he can’t deny that he does miss the warmth of the stage lights on his skin and the sheer, blind adoration his fans generously pour at him. There’s a thrill that comes with being in the spotlight, and Jongdae feels a part of him craving that attention once more.
Jongdae falls asleep on the couch while watching Show Champion. He’d decided to watch out for Jongin’s performance, but the couch had been really comfortable and lying nestled in pillows didn’t help.
It’s over when he wakes up, so he turns the television off and goes into his room to check his phone. He’d forgotten all about his texts to Lu Han by then, but was instantly reminded by Lu Han’s reply.
Sure! When are you coming? Where are you staying?
I don’t know yet. You know of a good place? Jongdae types back quickly. Seeing Lu Han’s easy reply made him feel at ease too, and he presses send without a second thought.
You can stay over at my place. Comes the reply barely a minute later. Will wrap up filming for the sitcom in two weeks so you should come then! I’ll bring you around as a tourist.
Okay I’ll let you know. Thanks, ge! He sends a grinning sticker for added sparkle, to which Lu Han replies with a thumbs up emoji.
“Yoojung-ie,” Jongdae tries. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
Yoojung stares at his face, her eyes still filled with tears and snot starting to dribble out of her nose. Sooyeon laughs and wipes at it with a hanky, but doesn’t rescue Jongdae from her daughter. There’s a brief moment of peace as Yoojung studies Jongdae’s face, but then she reaches out and smacks her palm against the side of his neck and bursts into tears again.
Jongdeok laughs, and finally takes Yoojung from Jongdae. She reaches out for him, still crying. It was amazing how attached she’d gotten to Jongdae in the three months he’d been home, and it really hurts Jongdae to have to leave.
He presses one last kiss on her forehead. “I’ll be home before you know it, princess,” he tells her. She quietens, her sobs turning into hiccups, and the adults giggle and shove him over to the glass doors in front of immigration.
Jongdae thought he’d be safe after no one had recognised him at Incheon – (No one recognised you because you didn’t wear makeup, his brother had said. Why whould I wear makeup?! Jongdae had asked, annoyed.) – but somehow someone had recognised him while he was walking from the plane to immigration, and he finds himself surrounded by cameras as he steps through the sliding doors at arrivals.
The flashes go off, and it takes Jongdae by surprise. He covers his face with his passport and tries to find his way out of the crowd, but sees none. The crowd’s closing in on him, and he’s honestly terrified. There’s so many voices, all Jongdae hears is a constant buzz, like bees, and he can’t discern them.
He doesn’t know how he manages to shove his way through, but somehow he makes it into a taxi in one piece. The taxi driver looks perplexed, and Jongdae can see that people behind him have already hopped into taxis and were waiting to follow him.
“Can you lose them?” He asks the taxi driver in Mandarin. It feels odd on his tongue, but at the same time, familiar.
The taxi driver nods. “You’d better buckle up first,” he says, and Jongdae does.
Jongdae feels like he’s part of some kind of American action movie. This isn’t the first time he’s been followed by fans and media in a vehicle, but it was the definitely the first time he’s done this alone.
Sooyeon’s right. He’s still the same person, but Beijing’s already seemed different. The driver weaves the taxi between other vehicles in the lanes on the highway, and eventually they lose the other taxis.
“You’re really good,” Jongdae tells him.
“Thanks. Been doing this for a while.” He squints at Jongdae through the rear view mirror. “You’d better not be an escaped convict.”
Jongdae laughs and shakes his head. “I was in a boyband.”
The driver raises an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Which one?”
“EXO,” he replies. “I’m not sure if you’ve–”
“Oh, my daughter was real sad when you guys broke up,” the taxi driver grins. “Which one are you? Kai? Lay? Tao?”
“Chen,” Jongdae corrects, feeling a little crestfallen when the the taxi driver’s eyebrows furrow together in confusion. “I was the main vocalist.”
“Ah, Chen!” He exclaims. “My daughter likes you too.” Jongdae can tell that’s a lie. He feels a little disappointed, though in himself or the daughter, or even the taxi driver, he doesn’t know.
In a taxi now, Jongdae texts Lu Han. Was ambushed at the airport. He pauses, then decides that Lu Han probably doesn’t need to know that. While he holds down his backspace, Lu Han replies.
Ok. Let me know when you hit Chaoyang.
Should be there in ten. Jongdae types. Can’t wait to see you. He doesn’t realise he’s typed that until his thumb hovers on the send button. He’s not sure if he wants to send it, but then he thinks, what the heck, and presses the button.
Me too.
Soon.
Jongdae ducks his head and smiles.
1. The passing or spending of the summer;
summer retreat or residence.
Lu Han’s apartment is small – there’s a rather large living area, a dining room that’s connected to the kitchen, and two bedrooms with a bathroom sandwiched in the middle. It looks and feels like Lu Han, and Jongdae feels both comfortable and antsy at the same time.
“The guest room’s here,” Lu Han says, leaning against the door frame and waving a hand. He has one of his small, soft smiles on, one that Jongdae hasn’t seen for a long while, ever since the sheer pressure of being an image had pressed heavily down onto their backs. But part of it was gone now, and Jongdae can see that Lu Han was straightening himself back up.
Jongdae tugs his suitcase inside, then stands in the middle and simply looks around. There’s a bed and a bedside table, a pair of closets against a wall, an almost-empty bookcase and a pile of boxes, but other than that the room looks completely void of life.
“You’re staying two weeks, right?” Lu Han asks.
“Yeah,” Jongdae replies. He spots their albums on one of the lower shelves, and squats down to look at them closer. MAMA, XOXO, Growl, Miracles of December–
“You know, you can stay a bit longer,” Lu Han says, and Jongdae stands up.
“It’s okay, I really don’t want to impose,” Jongdae tells him. He tries to make it light, lets out a chuckle, and sees Lu Han’s smile dims a little.
Lu Han orders in pizza for them both that evening. Jongdae sits on the couch in front of the television and watches as steam curls from the freshly baked dough and rises up, while Lu Han fiddles with the remote.
“I have no idea how to get the Korean channels,” Lu Han says, looking sheepish. He puts down the remote, the channel something about cooking. Yixing’s face pops up all of a sudden, and Jongdae bursts out laughing.
“Oh my god, is he on a cooking show again?” He asks.
Lu Han grins. “Yeah. China loves seeing him cook. He’s topping the polls as China’s Most Eligible Bachelor.”
“Wow,” Jongdae says, turning to Lu Han. “It took him four years, but I can’t believe he finally beat you.”
“Better late than never.” Lu Han shrugs, then leans down to push the pizza box towards Jongdae. “Might as well eat while watching a cooking show, huh?”
Jongdae picks up a slice, and returns Lu Han’s grin.
Beijing in June had always been too hot, too hazy, too suffocating. Jongdae had never been fond of summer, but he reserves a special place in his soul for his dislike for Beijing’s. As idols they were always chauffeured from one air-conditioned place to another, sheltered from the sweltering heat until they were unlucky enough to have an outdoor performance. Even then, they’d have an army of stylists and coordis to fan their sweat off. Initially, that had made Jongdae feel extremely uncomfortable – being treated like some kind of king – but he can’t deny that he misses the royal treatment just a bit.
“Come on,” Lu Han says, nudging him forward as they walk through Qianmen street. It’s a sweltering night, and there’s too many people all around them. Jongdae’s terrified that someone will recognise them and cause the crowd to converge on them, like what happened at the airport, so he keeps his head down and follows wherever Lu Han tells him to go.
They slip into a small alley, and there’s no one else but them and a couple of elderly folk that man the food stalls on each side.
“You’re tense,” Lu Han points out. He looks worried. “You want to talk about it?”
Jongdae shakes his head no. “It’s just hot,” he insists.
Lu Han stares at him for a while longer, then lets out the tiniest sigh that Jongdae almost misses. “Come on,” he says again, this time stepping forward and leading the way. “Let’s find some tanghulu instead.”
The air-conditioning in Lu Han’s apartment sputters and dies on Jongdae’s fourth day in Beijing, and he finds himself sitting in front of the fan laughing as Lu Han searches the internet for an air-conditioning repairman. The curses Lu Han makes reminds Jongdae of the time he’d first met the Chinese boys all those years ago, before they were sugar-coated with the idol persona. It feels a little as though the glaze has cracked and they’re back to being boys again, though Jongdae knows that there’s nothing they can do to get their youth back.
Lu Han lets out a groan, then tosses his phone aside and slides over to Jongdae in front of the fan. “Move over,” he orders.
“No way,” Jongdae says, putting his hands down so he’s firmly in place.
“I’m the owner of this house,” Lu Han insists, shoving his butt a little harder. “Move, Jongdae.”
“Well, I’m the guest, and as the host you should give me the fan,” Jongdae tells him. It feels great, bantering with Lu Han like this once more, all the awkwardness between them shoved aside for a while so they could just be two brats fighting for the fan on a hot summer’s day.
There’s a glint in Lu Han’s eyes, and Jongdae feels a familiar little thrill up his spine because he knows that Lu Han’s up to something. Years ago that would mean a prank on another member of EXO, or a round of hot, frenzied sex, but they’re no longer bandmates nor lovers and it makes Jongdae’s heart shrink just a tiny bit.
But then Lu Han kicks Jongdae in the thigh and he falls over to the side. He gets up and yells foul, then tries to shove Lu Han aside, but Lu Han’s planted himself firmly where Jongdae once was, closing his eyes and enjoying the breeze.
Eventually Lu Han manages to get hold of an air-conditioning repairman, but the earliest he can get them to come is the next morning. Since none of the units work in the apartment, Jongdae finds himself in the balcony next to Lu Han, bottles of beer and handfuls of memories spread out between them.
“I remember doing this a lot with Minseok before we debuted,” Lu Han says. He looks up at the sky, and Jongdae wants to laugh and tell him that Minseok’s not dead, that they can call him anytime between 1900 and 2200 KST and he’ll pick up.
“There weren’t any stars in Seoul’s night sky either,” Lu Han continues.
Jongdae looks up, and realises that he’s right. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s seen a night sky filled with stars. Perhaps at his grandparent’s place in Daejeon, but he hasn’t been there since the last chuseok.
“I read somewhere that some of the stars we see are already dead. It’s just that their light’s taking millions of years to reach us. But if you go out to meet them you’d find that there’s nothing there anymore,” Jongdae says.
Lu Han turns to look at him. He’s frowning. “That’s the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard, do you know that?”
Jongdae can’t help but throw his head back and laugh. He almost drops his bottle of beer, and puts it gingerly on the ground as he tries to pull himself together.
“Sorry.” He’s still grinning, and doesn’t sound apologetic to his own ears. “It just popped up in my head.”
Lu Han has one of those small, fond smiles on again, and Jongdae wants to kiss him so badly. There’s so much Jongdae wants for them, so much they’ve had in the past but lost, and he wonders if Lu Han wants the same.
Somehow Lu Han manages to find a single sleeping bag, and they spread it out on the balcony and lie down on it, listening to the non-quiet of the night – the occasional vehicle on the streets below, the muted blare of a television, the distant laughter of happy people. Jongdae lets it all lull him to sleep, but he ebbs back and forth between wakefulness and dreams.
Soon he finds himself staring at the curve of Lu Han’s lips as he sleeps, wanting nothing more than to be able to trace that slight scar on his lower lip. It’s been a long time since he’s really looked at Lu Han, at his long eyelashes resting against his skin, dark against light, a beautiful contrast; at the rise of his cheekbones and the curve of his cheeks; the line of his nose and the way his mouth opens a little as he dreams. He wants to be able to kiss every bit of Lu Han’s skin again, the way he’s done before all those years ago.
Jongdae turns away from Lu Han, finding it too ridiculous that he’s still desperately holding onto something that’s in the past. He feels embarrassed then, of himself and his desires, and thinks about his family instead – of his parents and Jongdeok and Sooyeon and Yoojung – and finally manages to fall back asleep.
Lu Han introduces Jongdae to a cafe run by a close friend of his. “Just in case you need a place alone to think,” he says, as they sit across each other with menus in their hands. “Since that’s what you came to Beijing for anyway.”
“Thanks,” Jongdae replies. It’s a really nice place, on the second storey of a not-so-new, yet not-old shophouse a ten minutes’ walk away from Lu Han’s apartment. It has big windows, letting light in yet at the same time providing privacy with blinds and strategically-placed tables. It reminds him of all the times he and Lu Han have grabbed coffee together between schedules and practices.
He swings his feet, and it nudges against Lu Han’s. The apology’s at the tip of his tongue, but is quickly swallowed when Lu Han reaches out and rests his hand on top of Jongdae’s.
“Whatever you’re looking for, I hope you find it soon,” he says.
Lu Han has a couple of post-production meetings and refilmings to do during the next few days, so Jongdae busies himself by catching up on his reading at the cafe. He’s made friends with the owner by now – a bubbly man by the name of Junhui who asks him about the books he’s reading and even teaches him how to make foam art on coffee.
“Just knock it gently on the countertop.” Junhui knocks once to show Jongdae how it’s done, then passes the metal milk jug over to Jongdae. He repeats the action, and Junhui shows him how to pour the milk out so the foam follows too.
“Swirl it, then knock it again, then tilt your cup and pour,” he says.
Jongdae does. It comes out more foam than milk, and the brown swirls don’t come out pretty at all, but Junhui commends him on a great first try anyway.
“Do that fifty more times and you’ll be able to make a decent cup,” he says, laughing and clapping Jongdae on the back. Jongdae laughs as well, feeling great that he’s learnt something new simply for the sake of learning. It makes him feel young again, that all those years he’d spent half-wasted being EXO’s Chen were coming back.
But then again it doesn’t rid him of how lost and confused he still feels.
2. Zool. The act of remaining dormant or torpid during the dry season, or extreme heat of summer;
summer-sleep.
Having Jongdae around somehow felt that time was standing still, that they were back to those stolen nights in hotel rooms where they knew nothing more than each other. Lu Han had made Jongdae his whole world in those moments, wanting nothing more than to just lie pressed skin to skin, lips to lips, soul to soul. It had been their decision to drift apart, feeling too guilty indulging in a happiness that their bandmates who were broken and hurt did not have.
But now that EXO was no more, that Chen and Luhan were no more, Lu Han wondered if he and Jongdae could be again.
He’s so lost in his thoughts while driving he hadn’t realised that he’d left his apartment without his wallet and phone, and makes a U-turn back. He parks his car by the road instead of going into the carpark and races upstairs, intending to grab the stuff he’s missed and leave.
He wonders if Jongdae’s already awake. While he’d usually be one of the first few up in the mornings when they were in EXO, without the burden of schedules he sleeps in, and Lu Han tries his best to go about his morning routine without waking him.
The first thing he notices when he steps into his apartment is the soft lilt of Jongdae’s voice, muffled slightly by the walls between them. He can’t recognise the song yet, but it makes something in Lu Han seize up. Sure, he’s heard Jongdae sing hundreds of thousands of times before, but not in this way.
Jongdae wasn’t singing for anyone, he was singing purely for himself. Lu Han steps past his room and leans against wall next to the bathroom door. He’s showering, naked, in there, Lu Han thinks dimly, but realises that that particular detail isn’t important. What is, though, is the rise and fall of Jongdae’s voice, of how much of himself he pours into his singing.
Lu Han realises that this isn’t a performance, and feels guilty all of a sudden for intruding on something that was possibly very private. But he can’t pull away, not when he wants so badly, and Jongdae is right there but he can’t reach out, doesn’t know how.
He closes his eyes and listens with his heart in his throat until the song ebbs away, then grabs his phone and wallet and slides out of the apartment.
The meeting drags on till the late afternoon, and Lu Han shoots Jongdae a text saying that he would be late.
Okay! Told Junhui and we’re having dinner, so I’ll see you later!
Something in Lu Han snaps a little. He pulls out Junhui’s number and starts texting him, but then wonders why on earth he’s being jealous. Jongdae isn’t his, hasn’t been for years and years, and moreover, Jongdae hadn’t said that it was a date.
He lets out a groan. One of the writers ask him what’s up, and he shakes his head and mutters out a nothing, sorry. She gives him a quizzical look, but doesn’t press it.
Lu Han checks the time on his phone. 6.30pm. Which meant that it would be 7.30pm in KST, or 1930 hours in army talk, which also meant that Lu Han could call Minseok. He leaves the room, pacing back and forth in the corridor, waiting for Minseok to pick up. He feels a bit guilty, calling his best friend only when he has boy problems, but he’s also the only one he can talk about Jongdae to.
“Hello?” Minseok greets, his voice bright. “Lu Han! I thought I’d never hear from you!”
“Hey Minseok-ie,” he greets back. “I’m so sorry, I’ve been busy.”
“With Jongdae?” Minseok asks. His voice is teasing, but Lu Han knows that Minseok just knows him too well.
“No, you ass,” he says instead. “With post-production for the sitcom.”
“Uh-huh,” Minseok says, sounding the complete opposite of convinced.
“Fine,” Lu Han admits. “He’s staying at my place, what else do you expect me to do?”
“WHOA,” Minseok exclaims. “Damn, Lu, you move fast. I wouldn’t have pegged you for the type, but I guess Jongdae’s still young, huh.”
“NO,” Lu Han practically shouts into his phone. Everyone around him turns to look at him, and he bows apologetically and disappears into a stairwell. “We haven’t done anything. I don’t know if he still wants…” He pauses. “Whatever we had back then.”
Minseok chuckles. “Trust me when I say he does, Lu Han. If he cared any less about EXO he would’ve just held onto you and never let you go.”
For some reason Lu Han buys a watermelon on the way back home. He hefts the giant fruit into the back seat of his car and drives home, thinking of those sweltering days in Seoul where the twelve of them would share a single large watermelon and it wouldn’t be enough.
And how it would be too much for the eleven of them the next summer.
They’ve made it some kind of routine to sit out in the balcony and drink beer and talk about anything and everything under the starless sky at night. Tonight was no different, though there’s a giant watermelon that joins them.
“I don’t know how to cut this,” Jongdae says, turning the watermelon around this way and that, his knife poised and ready to cut. “Do I just slice it in half?”
“I think so?” Lu Han says. He takes the knife from Jongdae. “Here, let me try.”
Lu Han slices the watermelon in half, then feels a little lost. “It looked so much easier when Kyungsoo and Chanyeol did it.”
“What if we just stick spoons in it and eat it like pudding or something,” Jongdae suggests. Lu Han thinks that’s a great idea that would save them from a headache and a giant mess, so he gets up to put the knife in the sink and grab the spoons.
They spend the next hour scooping into the watermelon and talking about their ex-bandmates, Jongdae sounding a little jealous to Lu Han at how adjusted they’ve become after EXO was no more.
“It’s funny how we talk more about EXO when EXO’s gone,” Lu Han muses as they lapse into silence.
Jongdae looks up at the dark sky. “Like the stars, I guess, you see their light but they don’t exist anymore.”
Lu Han drops his spoon to punch Jongdae on the shoulder. “Don’t compare us to dead stars, you asshole.”
Jongdae has three days left in Beijing, and Lu Han’s getting a little desperate. He tells his manager to cancel all of his schedules – a fitting for the press conference of his sitcom, and yet another post-production meeting – and stays home with Jongdae. He’d brought Jongdae to every single touristy spot imaginable, wearing odd hats and odder sunglasses in order to blend into the crowd of odd tourists, and finds himself laughing more than he’s ever had in the past few years.
“I don’t want to go back,” Jongdae tells him quietly that night.
“Then don’t,” Lu Han replies, feeling his heart catch in his chest. Stay with me, he wants to say so badly, but keeps his lips pressed shut.
They lapse into silence, and Lu Han feels it drag out, till it becomes too much, too loud, and he focuses on the other noises instead – of the drag of wheels on asphalt on the street below and the muted buzz of people talking in the distance –
“Tell me to stay.” Jongdae’s staring at him, his eyes filled with confusion and worry and hurt and loss.
“Stay with me,” Lu Han says. He feels something in him break. “Please.”
3. Bot. Internal arrangement of a flower-bud;
manner in which the petals are folded up therein before expansion; præfloration.
Jongdae changes his flight back to Seoul to some date way into the future that he can barely remember, then puts Lu Han’s iPad aside and leans back onto the couch, wondering what on earth he’d just done.
Lu Han’s sitting next to him, and there’s this gap between them that Jongdae doesn’t know how to bridge. It’s barely a couple of inches, but it makes him feel like they’re miles and miles apart.
Yixing’s on the television again, his dimple dancing on his right cheek as he presents a member of the audience his dish. Jongdae remembers a time when none of them had dared to consume his cooking, and now there’s lines that snake around the block for people just to get onto his show as part of the audience.
“He told me he bumped into Yifan the other day,” Lu Han says suddenly. “Said it felt like closure.”
None of them had spoken to Yifan ever since that day. Jongdae had tried to send him a text when they’d realised he’d really gone, but he’d pressed rapidly on the backspace and tossed his phone aside every time.
“What did they say to each other?” Jongdae asks.
“Nothing much.” Lu Han turns to him, and Jongdae can see that he, too, couldn’t decide how he felt about the whole situation. They’d been numbed over the years, Jongdae realises, the pain never really having left them, simply buried under the plethora of other responsibilities that they had to carry out.
“They said hi to each other and shook hands. Yifan said something about Yixing’s show, about how he’s tried one of the recipes and liked it, and Yixing praised Yifan’s drama in return,” Lu Han continues. “I told him that was very civil.”
“It’s a start,” Jongdae says. “I guess if I were to meet him too and that happened, it would feel like closure.”
Lu Han turns away then, staring back at the television. “I’d want to slap Yifan, just once.”
Jongdae turns to him, a little shocked.
“Just once,” Lu Han repeats. “For EXO.”
Jongdae calls home the day he’s supposed to leave. It’s Sooyeon who answers.
“Hey, ‘Dae,” she says, her voice light and chirpy. “How’s Beijing? Ready to come back home?”
“You know how it’s like,” Jongdae chuckles. They’ve been keeping up through texts as always, Jongdae sending her and Jongdeok pictures of everything he’s seen and done. “And no,” he adds after a pause. “I’m not going back. Not yet.”
Sooyeon doesn’t speak for a while. “Is this about Lu Han?”
“Jongdeok hyung told you,” Jongdae grits out.
“No, he didn’t,” Sooyeon says gently. “Jongdae, we’ve been friends longer than he and I have dated and married, you know. Give me some credit, geez.” She says the last part a little teasingly, and Jongdae relaxes.
“Yeah it is, a little. But then again, not really.” He takes a deep breath, and tells her everything.
Telling Sooyeon had been a huge relief. He would’ve told Baekhyun, but he didn’t want to shoulder his burden onto him, especially between his schedules and his wedding preparations. He leans back on the couch when he hangs up. Sooyeon had told him to talk to Lu Han, pull that much-used trope of we need to talk on him the next chance he gets.
Lu Han comes back exhausted from the press conference, and Jongdae offers to make him ramyeon. He feels vaguely domestic as he stirs the noodles in a pot, but in a different way from how he’d felt at him parents’ home.
In Siheung he’d felt like he was fulfilling his duties and responsibilities as a son, out of his love for his family and the obligations he has towards them, but here in Lu Han’s apartment he feels like he’s taking care of Lu Han out of the sheer desire to see him fed and healthy and happy.
He chuckles to himself. Healthy, he thinks, looking at the instant noodles.
When he’s done he brings the pot and chopsticks out to the balcony, while Lu Han grabs drinks. He shifts the stuff that’s started to clutter the small space – a stool atop which a bottle opener lies, the scrunched up sleeping bag, a cheap telescope Lu Han had bought a week before – and arranges the pot in the middle of it.
Lu Han comes back with a bowl of ice and two bottles of beer.
“What’s that for?” Jongdae asks, nodding at the ice and taking one of the bottles.
“Beer wasn’t cold enough,” Lu Han says, putting the bowl away from the hot pot. “Remember when we used to chew on ice when the water dispenser ran out?”
Jongdae grins. He remembers. He’d just entered SM back then, and the dance studio was always filled with people. Managing to get a cup of water during break was a miracle, and even if you do, it usually wasn’t cold. So Chanyeol came up with the ingenious idea to buy a bag of ice from the nearby convenience store and share it.
It had been extremely refreshing, and still is, Jongdae thinks, as he munches on ice while the ramyeon cools. Lu Han munches noisily next to him, and for a moment Jongdae thinks of them as lost, scared trainees again.
Except they’ve gone through the whole idol experience and come out changed, different, older, and he realises that the Lu Han and Jongdae who sat next to each other chewing ice seven years ago aren’t the same Lu Han and Jongdae who sit next to each other chewing ice now.
“You’re pensive while chewing ice,” Lu Han says. He sounds a little nervous.
Jongdae turns to him and thinks of his conversation with Sooyeon that morning, then of his conversation with Lu Han years ago.
“I wonder how many times we’ve changed,” he says simply, letting the words hang in the air. He swallows the ice, not wanting to chew it any longer, and it burns a cold trail down his throat.
Lu Han swallows too, and looks away. “I don’t think I’m the same person, Jongdae.”
Jongdae feels his stomach sink, the hurt sitting deep and heavy and the bottom. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve been through so much, and we– I’ve changed, Jongdae. I’m not the same person I was four years ago.” He looks down. “You don’t want me now. I’m not the same person.”
“Hyung, no,” Jongdae says, turning to him and pushing the bowl of ice aside so he can really, really look at Lu Han. “What I meant was – both of us aren’t the same person. I’ve changed too. And that’s okay.”
Lu Han doesn’t look up, but Jongdae’s hurting in a different way now – for Lu Han, because he doesn’t know just how much Jongdae aches for him. He reaches out to cup Lu Han’s cheek in his hand, then pulls him close and presses his lips on Lu Han’s.
It’s cold, but there’s a fantastic warmth that’s seeping through him, spreading out to his fingers and toes. Lu Han places a hand on Jongdae’s waist and kisses back, holds him close, fingers pressing as though holding on, terrified to let go.
When they break apart, Jongdae rests their forehead together.
“I will always want you, hyung,” he breathes out, and feels Lu Han letting out a little sigh against his lips.
As much as Jongdae would like to say that everything simply clicks into place after he and Lu Han get together, he has to admit that he still doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life by the time his one-month visa runs out.
“I’ll come back,” he promises Lu Han, threading their fingers together as they lie in bed, sheets tangled between their legs and the heady heat of summer surrounding them. He raises Lu Han’s hand to his lips and kisses them, one by one, until Lu Han snatches his hand back.
“I’m not your kept man, asshole,” he says, grinning. “I’m going back with you.”
Jongdae gapes. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not,” he rolls around and grabs his phone off his bedside table. “I wasn’t intending to anyway, since, I quote myself am not your kept man, but Sehun gave me a pretty damn good reason.” He holds up his phone, and it’s a message.
Hyung help my girlfriend’s pregnant and our parents want us to get married but idk what to do hyung help me idk who else to ask everyone else will just make fun of me hyung help me pls
–––––
Sehun’s wedding happens seven weeks after the frenzied text to Lu Han. Naturally, it spreads to the rest of EXO the day Lu Han and Jongdae land at Incheon. Baekhyun is a little pissed that Sehun had gotten the title of first married member of EXO, but unruffles when he realises that it is, after all, shotgun.
“Don’t look down on shotgun weddings,” Sehun bristles. “Jieun and I will last forever.”
It’s interesting how quickly they all fall back into place after drifting for so long, Jongdae thinks, as he fixes his bowtie in the mirror and watches as the rest of his ex-bandmates bicker behind him. Minseok switches caps next to him, frowning at the brown fedora, then takes it off entirely.
“Looks like I just have to go bald, then,” he says with a mock sigh.
“You’re our nation’s soldier,” Jongdae says, nudging him.
“Soon you will be too,” Minseok reminds him, smirking. “So you’d better spend the remnants of your civilian time with Lu Han while you can.”
Jongdae frowns at him. “I really hope I won’t start talking like you once I go in,” he says.
Minseok chuckles. “You can try to resist, bro, but it’ll suck you in.”
They lapse into silence then, and Jongdae’s phone buzzes. He pulls it out, and finds that it’s a text from Lu Han.
Got him. Will be there in 30. Pray for no jams.
Praying m(_ _)m, Jongdae replies, then slides his phone back into his pocket.
“Lu Han and Yixing hyung’s got him! They’ll be here in 30,” he announces to the room.
“That’s great, man,” Sehun says. “I’m nervous. Do you think it was a good idea to invite him?”
“Why are you nervous over that?” Junmyeon asks him, clapping him on the back. “You should be nervous over seeing Jieun in her dress.”
Sehun visibly gulps. “She wanted to murder me the other day. Said that she was getting too fat for her dress and it’s all my fault.”
“It is your fault, though,” Jongin reminds him. “Wear a condom the next time.”
Jongdae thinks of how happy Jongdeok and Sooyeon were when Yoojung was first born. “Don’t worry, Sehun, there won’t be a shred of regret in four months when you see your kid for the first time.”
Sehun looks even more tense. “Look, let’s not talk about kids yet, okay. I still don’t think I’ll make a good dad.”
“I still don’t think he deserves the title of first married member of EXO,” Baekhyun pipes up from where he’s half-sulking in an armchair at the corner of the room. “Taeyeon and I have been planning our wedding for years.”
“Whatever, Baekhyun,” it’s Chanyeol who surprises everyone by dismissing him. “Today’s Sehun’s day, so just shut the fuck up and be happy for him.”
That earns him a hard punch on the shoulder. Chanyeol sputters in pain, and Kyungsoo retaliates by pulling Baekhyun into a headlock, Zitao cheering him on.
Junmyeon shakes his head. “I’m going to grab a smoke,” he tells Jongdae. “Come with me?”
Jongdae takes a sweeping glance at the chaos that is the groomsmen’s hotel room, and decides why the hell not.
They go into a smoking lounge a couple of floors down. Junmyeon offers Jongdae a cig, but he declines.
“You’re still taking care of your voice,” he says, lighting up. “Been thinking about what you want to do yet?”
“I still have no clue, but I’m happy where I am,” Jongdae tells him honestly. “I’ve been teaching kids part-time at the music school near Lu Han’s apartment, and it’s nice.”
Junmyeon hmms, then takes a drag. Jongdae had thought he’d leave it at that, but then:
“SM has an opening for a vocal trainer. So if you’d like that, just let me know.”
Lu Han and Yixing appear a little over thirty minutes later, pushing the door open and announcing his presence with a yell of “WE’RE HERE!”
Everyone in the room freezes. Sehun drops his game controller, and Jongdae almost chokes on his drink. Zitao pricks himself on a pin, and yelps.
Jongdae had imagined this moment for years, all twelve of them together in the same room once more. He’d always thought it would be at the backstage of some awards show, but never at their youngest member’s wedding.
Yet here they are, getting up from where they’ve seated, watching as Yifan steps through the door and starts bowing. It’s extremely formal, as though they’d never sweat or cried or dreamed together, years and years of distance and bitterness making it difficult and putting a chasm between them.
But then Junmyeon takes a step forward and pulls Yifan into a hug. He barely comes up past Yifan’s shoulder, and Yifan looks perplexed and terrified at the same time. It’s so silent that Jongdae swears he can hear a pin drop, but then Yifan wraps his arms around Junmyeon’s tiny frame and holds him close.
Sehun gets up then, joining them, wrapping his arms around both their shoulders. The three of them stay that way for a while, but then finally let go of each other.
Yifan’s eyes are glistening with tears, and Jongdae really, really, really wants to laugh, because after everything that’s happened, and everything that’s changed, the fact that Wu Yifan is a giant sap still hasn’t changed. He moves over to Yifan then, pulling him into a hug, then giving him a squeeze round his shoulders.
“Hey guys,” Yifan greets them all, his voice thick and his eyes filled with tears. It spills, and he wipes them with the back of his hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“Do you think we’ll ever have this?” Jongdae asks Lu Han much later, after Sehun and Jieun have kissed and Junmyeon and Yifan have cried as though they were Sehun’s parents and not Mr and Mrs Oh. All the courses of the dinner has been served and eaten and the cake has been cut.
Lu Han looks around, then presses a kiss on the top of Jongdae’s head. He grabs Jongdae’s hand under the table, curling their fingers together and giving it a squeeze.
“Someday, when the world is more accepting,” he says, just as the lights start to darken and Sehun and Jieun step out to have their first dance. “Until then, we’ll always have us.”
Jongdae feels his heart swell with so much love, all for Lu Han. He slides a hand around Lu Han's waist and pulls him close for a kiss just as the music starts, not caring about the people around them, content with losing themselves in each other.
Author's note: this fic was basically all the headcanons b and i have of exo after they disband. i know tons of people think that post-disbandment fic has to be angsty, but i did try my best to make this a lighthearted read. i absolutely adored this prompt and all its lovely little elements. i hope i’ve managed to weave in as much as you wanted in this fic! writing it was such a joy, so thank you so much, dear prompter! definition of aestivation from this post.
Please return to our LiveJournal to leave the author a lovely comment! ♡
Title: aestivation: here we lie, skin against skin
Pairing: chen/luhan
Rating: pg
Word count: ~10k
Summary: post-disbandment!exo. the path in front of them splits eleven ways. jongdae’s too afraid to take a step forward, but he doesn’t realise that his and luhan’s merge in the middle.
Pronunciation:ɛstɪˈveɪʃəniːstɪˈveɪʃən
It’s a miracle that they survived almost four years after Yifan’s leave, actually. If SM had their way EXO would merely be put on hiatus while two or three members get sent into the army, but everyone felt that it would be better to just disband. They’ve spent more time away than together, and even their fans were starting to dissipate into individual members or other groups. While their first concert had sold out in less than two seconds, their fourth had taken vicious advertising on their part on social media before it had finally sold out two days before the actual concert.
Looking back, Jongdae felt that that had been an indication of the beginning of an end. Standing on stage looking out at a sea of silver lights with ten others didn’t seem as magical anymore, and he wasn’t the only one who’d felt that way.
“Hyung, you shouldn’t light up here,” he calls out when he sees Junmyeon out in the shadows, cig between his fingers. They’re in a small alley at the back of a stadium in Bangkok, and anyone who was spirited enough would be able to poke a DSLR through the giant trucks around them and snap a picture. Junmyeon didn’t seem to care, though, taking another drag and straightening himself when he sees Jongdae near.
“There’s no one here,” he says.
“There might be,” Jongdae insists. He grabs Junmyeon’s elbow and drags him back inside the stadium. Junmyeon follows with a sigh, letting the cig fall between his fingers and stubbing it out with his heel.
“Two more weeks,” Junmyeon mutters.
“Yes,” Jongdae grits out. “So let’s just.” He pauses, his words not quite falling into place in his head. Hang in there? Not fuck up before then? “Get it done and over with.”
SM had called for a press conference the day before their encore concert in Seoul. There’d been a heavy atmosphere between them ever since they’d come to a decision to disband after the tour was over.
Go out with a bang, not with a whimper, Jongdae supposes.
Jongdae poses for the cameras, his eyes flitting from lens to lens, his movements almost instinctual after years of being an idol. He waves, then takes his seat next to Minseok. At the end of the row, Zitao is stiff, his hands still on his lap and his eyebrows furrowed as he scans the press. Jongdae wonders if he was tired, having to tour while filming. He wonders if he felt relieved when they’d decided on disbanding, like a heavy burden being removed from his shoulders.
There’s an outline they have to follow for the press conference. Junmyeon talks about the different countries they’ve been to, Baekhyun and Chanyeol chipping in with little anecdotes. They’d tossed the responsibility to drop the bomb around them during their meeting a couple of weeks ago, before Minseok had finally stepped in and said that he’d say it, no problem.
Jongdae swallows. There’s not much time till they drop the news. Yixing wraps up whatever they’ve said about the tour. Someone asks when their next album is, and Minseok stiffens next to Jongdae.
“There won’t be another album,” he says, cutting straight to the point. “We’ve spoken a lot about this, both with each other and the company.” There’s a pause. Jongdae can tell that his hands are shaking under the table.
“EXO is disbanding.”
Sehun is curled up in the corner of the sofa, scrolling on his iPad, Jongin looking over his shoulder. They have identical worried expressions – eyebrows furrowed and mouth set into a thin line, eyes scanning line after line of text – and Jongdae knows that they’re probably reading fans’ reactions to the news.
“Some of them are taking it quite well,” Sehun says after a moment, straightening his back and pushing his iPad to Jongin. “Some are distraught, though.”
“Understandable,” Lu Han mumbles. He’s playing with his earphones, twirling the cable lazily, occasionally glancing at the iPad.
At the other side of the room, Kyungsoo gets up from his chair and walks out into the corridor. Jongdae watches at Lu Han grabs the iPad from Jongin, his lips turning down into a frown the more he scrolls, and feels his stomach clench. He gets up and leaves the room as well.
Kyungsoo’s gripping a paper cup at the end in the corridor. Jongdae grabs his own cup and fills it with water from the dispenser, then joins him.
They stand in silence for a while, before Kyungsoo finally looks up and nods at Jongdae.
“What are you going to do after this?” He asks.
Jongdae shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m still figuring it out.”
“You could go solo,” he says. “Use whatever remnants of EXO’s popularity, make it your own.”
Jongdae shakes his head. “Jongin’s doing that. I’m not going to take that away from him.”
The corners of Kyungsoo’s lips tug up into a smile. “You know you could. If it were between you and Jongin you know you’d win out.” It’s not accusatory. Kyungsoo’s teasing.
Jongdae smiles as well. “I know. What I don’t know is if going solo is what I want.”
“Figure it out,” Kyungsoo says. “We can do anything we want from now on.”
“Yeah,” Jongdae agrees. “We can.”
Jongdae drives back to Siheung the day after the concert. He doesn’t bring much, just a small duffel bag with some gifts for his family. He thinks of Minseok as he drives – they’d shared a small apartment ever since it was clear that the rest of M wasn’t going to be in Seoul much, the company-paid dorm too huge and too empty for them both.
“When are you enlisting?” Jongdae asks Minseok that morning. They’d had breakfast together – instant rice and instant soup and reheated pajeon and chicken from two days ago – and it somehow calms Jongdae, that he’d always have Minseok as a friend even if they were no longer bandmates.
“Tomorrow,” Minseok answers, and Jongdae almost chokes on his rice.
“What?! That’s too soon!”
Minseok shrugs. “I didn’t want anyone to know. Don’t come to send me off, Jongdae.”
“You can’t tell me not to do that, hyung. I want to.”
“I don’t want you to,” Minseok says firmly. “Spend time with your family. Be there for all of Yoojung’s firsts.”
Jongdae frowns. He didn’t need to be there for all of Yoojung’s firsts to see them – his brother and sister-in-law were the type to send him pictures at least five times a day. He highly doubted that the toddler would be much different if he were to go back to Siheung a day later, but Minseok had been insistent.
“I really don’t want any fuss,” he said. “I’m tired.”
Aren’t we all, Jongdae thinks.
The next few weeks crawl past. Jongdae sleeps a lot more, meets up with his friends from high school, plays with his niece, and picks up cooking and baking from his mother and sister-in-law. The EXO group chat on KakaoTalk slows down, then trickles down to a handful of messages a day.
EXO’s sixth anniversary comes and goes a little more than three weeks after they disband. Their fans release a whole bunch of tributes online, of happy times and sad times and hard times, and Jongdae watches every single one with an odd sense of detachment. There’s a video that shows them all from predebut through the years, with Jongdae looking jittery onstage before his 2011 Gayo Daejun performance. He remembers feeling so very nervous and so very happy at the same time, his stomach swirling with a myriad of emotions that he’d felt a little nauseous and couldn’t eat.
Lu Han had refused to let him perform hungry, though. He’d pressed a cup into Jongdae’s hands and told him to eat. It had been a bit of rice mixed in with a lot of soup, and was also cold, since lunch had passed long before, but it warmed up Jongdae’s insides all the same.
There had been so much between them – they’d gone from friends to lovers and back, and out of all of EXO, Lu Han was the one person that Jongdae could say he knew inside out. It had hurt him when they’d drifted in the middle of 2014.
Yifan had taken more than just a few belongings when he left EXO, and till today, Jongdae could never really tell what was gone, all he knew was that there was this gaping chasm that none of them could bridge. All they could do was tiptoe around it and hope that they wouldn’t lose their footing and fall in.
They’d just come back from a tiring fansign in Beijing when they’d had That Talk. Lu Han hadn’t been too eager to slide under Jongdae’s covers, hesitating when Jongdae had patted the empty space in his bed.
“Hyung, what’s wrong?” Jongdae had asked, when Lu Han turned away with the premise of going over to his dresser to look for something.
The silence stretched out for a while, and Jongdae could see that Lu Han’s shoulders were tense. He was holding something back, something that was very important to him, but something that he couldn’t share very easily. Jongdae knew then that things between them were about to change.
“We need to talk,” Lu Han said eventually.
Jongdae doesn’t remember much of the conversation, only that they’d agreed to take a break. It felt odd to lose themselves in each other, especially when their bandmates were still struggling to come to terms with everything that had happened. It hadn’t been easy to stay away from Lu Han at first, since they were roommates and he was right there. The sex was good, as it always was, but neither of them could rid of the odd, bitter feeling of betrayal that stuck to them long after.
Eventually they, too, drifted, and all Jongdae could do was watch Lu Han from afar and feel his insides twist with desire and love and loss.
Yoojung’s starting to walk, which means that they have to keep a close eye on her at all times. She totters along, barrelling into everything that gets in her way, and has even managed to give herself a few bumps on her head and bruises on her limbs as a result, since they can’t seem to grab her before she collides into a piece of furniture or a wall.
Jongdae and Jongdeok are sitting boneless on the couch, tired after chasing Yoojung around the house. She has calmed down since, playing on her playmat with a bunch of soft toys, and the brothers watch her wearily, praying that she would fall asleep soon.
“Don’t ever get anyone pregnant,” Jongdeok says. “It’s not fun.”
“You tell me that now, but soon Yoojung will say pa again and you’ll tell me to quickly find someone to procreate with,” Jongdae replies.
“I never said that,” Jongdeok says, but he’s grinning. Jongdae turns to him and raises his eyebrow, and he laughs. “Fine. It’s fun and Yoojung is a blessing.” He pauses, and Jongdae thinks he’s done talking, but then he adds.
“But we both know that you probably won’t get anyone pregnant,” he turns to give Jongdae a small smile. “And that’s okay, Jongdae.”
Jongdae’s stunned. He’d never told his family that he preferred guys. He’d had girlfriends in the past, and was happy with letting them assume that he’d settle down and get married someday.
“Don’t give me that look. I knew. About Lu Han.”
Jongdae sputtered, and Jongdeok laughed. “How?” He asks.
Jongdeok shrugs. “I saw the way you kept looking at him. I’ve known you your whole life, baby bro, so it didn’t take much for me to figure it out.”
Yoojung chooses that instant to get up and make her way to the kitchen, and Jongdae doesn’t manage to ask Jongdeok what else he’d figured out, or if their parents knew. He doesn’t get a chance to bring up the conversation again for the rest of the evening, and goes to bed with a million thoughts squirming around in his head.
He can’t sleep, so he nabs his phone by the bedside table and checks for any new messages. There’s a couple in the EXO chat, so he opens that up.
Jongin
tony testa is working with me again! he wants to meet us all for dinner to catch up
Jongin
when is everyone free????
Zitao
filming in hong kong till july :’( sry
Zitao
eat lots of meat for me
Zitao
esp beef
Lu Han
me too. sorry :(
Jongdae feels his heart sink a little. Lu Han probably won’t be in the country for a long while, then, and since they weren’t bandmates anymore he wouldn’t need to go back for EXO.
Jongdae doesn't reply. He locks his phone, places it on his bedside table, then faces his back to it.
May passes and June comes without much fanfare. It’s been almost three months since EXO disbanded, and everyone seems to be adjusting. Minseok’s doing well in the army, choosing to be an active duty soldier and getting stationed in a military camp south of Jeju after his Basic Military Training. Chanyeol’s globetrotting in yet another variety show, and Sehun’s gotten a spot as a regular on Saturday Night Live. Junmyeon and Yixing seem to be emceeing in even more shows that it’s hard for Jongdae to keep track. He flips the channel and Junmyeon’s there, and switches to another and it him again in an ad for another show. It’s the same for Yixing when he switches over to Chinese cable channels. Baekhyun’s starting rehearsals for another musical, and Lu Han and Zitao are filming their sitcoms and movie respectively. Jongin’s wrapping up his prep for his solo debut, and Kyungsoo’s apparently gone back to school.
Meanwhile, Jongdae’s learning how to knead dough and make bread. He’d never thought of himself as a domestic type of person, but here he is balancing Yoojung on his hip while checking on the dough resting in the fridge.
“Not as big as I’d like,” he tells her. She babbles at him, throwing her hands happily in the air. He laughs, and smacks a kiss on her forehead. “That’s right! It’ll grow bigger soon, so we’ll leave it alone.”
Sooyeon comes into the kitchen then, fresh from her shower and looking a little less tired than she did when she’d gotten back from work. Yoojung reaches out for her, and Jongdae hands her over, flicking her nose when she’s nestled in her mother’s arms.
“One of my new colleagues is a huge fan of yours,” she says conversationally as they flit around the kitchen to prep for dinner. “She wonders what you’re doing now, since you’re one of the few out of the public eye.”
“You should tell her I’m busy changing diapers and chopping vegetables,” Jongdae says, reaching out to grab the carrots she’s washed.
“She doesn’t know I married your brother,” Sooyeon laughs. “Though I can’t imagine her reaction if I ever tell her you’ve been domesticated.”
Jongdae laughs too. It’s a joke within their family – that EXO’s Chen has been domesticated by a one-year-old and never ending household chores ever since the disbandment – but Jongdae can’t imagine sharing it with anyone else. It’s private, and simply a means for him to fulfill the obligations he’d selfishly left behind when he was an idol.
“What are you going to do?” Sooyeon asks suddenly. She rinses her hands in the sink and turns to face him, resting her hip against the counter. “Once you’ve rested.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re resting now,” she says, then narrows her eyes. “Aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Jongdae says softly. He really doesn’t.
Jongdae likes being home. He likes taking care of Yoojung while her parents are at work, and helping out his parents around the house. His mother is happy he’s home, eager to teach him all the dishes she knows so he can cook while she catches up with all the dramas she’s ever wanted to. It’s fun and new and interesting at first, but it gets a little mundane after a while. Jongdae’s itching to do something, but he’s doesn’t even know what that something is, so he squashes down the urge and goes about his daily routine.
“Don’t you want to sing again?” His brother asks him one evening.
“I don’t know,” Jongdae replies honestly, after mulling it over. “I miss singing, but all the add-ons that come with it,” he waves his hand vaguely in the air. “All that idol stuff, not so much.”
“You don’t need to be an idol,” Jongdeok says. “Isn’t Baekhyun doing musicals?”
“They still consider him an idol, though,” Jongdae tells him. “Once you become an idol, there’s no ridding yourself of that label. You’ll always be an idol to the public.”
“Doesn’t mean you should just stop singing, though,” Jongdeok reasons. “You should think about what you really want, Jongdae.”
“Maybe you should travel for a bit,” his mother suggests. “Get out of the country. Give yourself a change of scenery, a breath of fresh air.”
Jongdae liked the sound of that, but he didn’t know where to go. “I don’t think I’d want to stray too far though. I don’t want to have to deal with a new culture and all that.”
“China?” Sooyeon suggests. “I know you went there to work a lot, but you’d probably see the country in a different light without work in the way.”
Jongda mulls it over, playing with Yoojung’s blocks idly, stacking them up one on top of another before she squeals and knocks them all over. “I’ll miss Yoojung, though. She’ll miss me too,” He says.
Jongdeok snorts. “You’re spoiling her rotten, don't you realise? Maybe you should go to China after all. Stay with Lu Han or something.”
The mention of Lu Han’s name has Jongdae straightening himself. Jongdae hasn’t heard from him since their encore concert, since he’d taken a flight out the next morning and merely showed his face at the after party, taking a few bites before leaving, saying that he was exhausted.
Jongdae really wants to see him again.
Hey ge, Jongdae types, then pauses. I was thinking of going to Beijing for a short holiday.
His finger stills above the keyboard. Could you suggest a hotel for me to stay in? Didn’t sound right, especially when they’d stayed in so many hotels beforehand.
He settles for When are you free? We could go for coffee or something., then presses send and closes the app before he can regret sending it.
Not wanting to look at his phone, Jongdae leaves his room to find Yoojung, but she’s out for some two-on-one time with her grandparents, and he’s all alone in the house. He turns on the television and flicks idly through the channels, spotting his ex-bandmates and labelmates as they go about their jobs as idols.
As much as Jongdae doesn’t want to go back, he can’t deny that he does miss the warmth of the stage lights on his skin and the sheer, blind adoration his fans generously pour at him. There’s a thrill that comes with being in the spotlight, and Jongdae feels a part of him craving that attention once more.
Jongdae falls asleep on the couch while watching Show Champion. He’d decided to watch out for Jongin’s performance, but the couch had been really comfortable and lying nestled in pillows didn’t help.
It’s over when he wakes up, so he turns the television off and goes into his room to check his phone. He’d forgotten all about his texts to Lu Han by then, but was instantly reminded by Lu Han’s reply.
Sure! When are you coming? Where are you staying?
I don’t know yet. You know of a good place? Jongdae types back quickly. Seeing Lu Han’s easy reply made him feel at ease too, and he presses send without a second thought.
You can stay over at my place. Comes the reply barely a minute later. Will wrap up filming for the sitcom in two weeks so you should come then! I’ll bring you around as a tourist.
Okay I’ll let you know. Thanks, ge! He sends a grinning sticker for added sparkle, to which Lu Han replies with a thumbs up emoji.
“Yoojung-ie,” Jongdae tries. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
Yoojung stares at his face, her eyes still filled with tears and snot starting to dribble out of her nose. Sooyeon laughs and wipes at it with a hanky, but doesn’t rescue Jongdae from her daughter. There’s a brief moment of peace as Yoojung studies Jongdae’s face, but then she reaches out and smacks her palm against the side of his neck and bursts into tears again.
Jongdeok laughs, and finally takes Yoojung from Jongdae. She reaches out for him, still crying. It was amazing how attached she’d gotten to Jongdae in the three months he’d been home, and it really hurts Jongdae to have to leave.
He presses one last kiss on her forehead. “I’ll be home before you know it, princess,” he tells her. She quietens, her sobs turning into hiccups, and the adults giggle and shove him over to the glass doors in front of immigration.
Jongdae thought he’d be safe after no one had recognised him at Incheon – (No one recognised you because you didn’t wear makeup, his brother had said. Why whould I wear makeup?! Jongdae had asked, annoyed.) – but somehow someone had recognised him while he was walking from the plane to immigration, and he finds himself surrounded by cameras as he steps through the sliding doors at arrivals.
The flashes go off, and it takes Jongdae by surprise. He covers his face with his passport and tries to find his way out of the crowd, but sees none. The crowd’s closing in on him, and he’s honestly terrified. There’s so many voices, all Jongdae hears is a constant buzz, like bees, and he can’t discern them.
He doesn’t know how he manages to shove his way through, but somehow he makes it into a taxi in one piece. The taxi driver looks perplexed, and Jongdae can see that people behind him have already hopped into taxis and were waiting to follow him.
“Can you lose them?” He asks the taxi driver in Mandarin. It feels odd on his tongue, but at the same time, familiar.
The taxi driver nods. “You’d better buckle up first,” he says, and Jongdae does.
Jongdae feels like he’s part of some kind of American action movie. This isn’t the first time he’s been followed by fans and media in a vehicle, but it was the definitely the first time he’s done this alone.
Sooyeon’s right. He’s still the same person, but Beijing’s already seemed different. The driver weaves the taxi between other vehicles in the lanes on the highway, and eventually they lose the other taxis.
“You’re really good,” Jongdae tells him.
“Thanks. Been doing this for a while.” He squints at Jongdae through the rear view mirror. “You’d better not be an escaped convict.”
Jongdae laughs and shakes his head. “I was in a boyband.”
The driver raises an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Which one?”
“EXO,” he replies. “I’m not sure if you’ve–”
“Oh, my daughter was real sad when you guys broke up,” the taxi driver grins. “Which one are you? Kai? Lay? Tao?”
“Chen,” Jongdae corrects, feeling a little crestfallen when the the taxi driver’s eyebrows furrow together in confusion. “I was the main vocalist.”
“Ah, Chen!” He exclaims. “My daughter likes you too.” Jongdae can tell that’s a lie. He feels a little disappointed, though in himself or the daughter, or even the taxi driver, he doesn’t know.
In a taxi now, Jongdae texts Lu Han. Was ambushed at the airport. He pauses, then decides that Lu Han probably doesn’t need to know that. While he holds down his backspace, Lu Han replies.
Ok. Let me know when you hit Chaoyang.
Should be there in ten. Jongdae types. Can’t wait to see you. He doesn’t realise he’s typed that until his thumb hovers on the send button. He’s not sure if he wants to send it, but then he thinks, what the heck, and presses the button.
Me too.
Soon.
Jongdae ducks his head and smiles.
summer retreat or residence.
Lu Han’s apartment is small – there’s a rather large living area, a dining room that’s connected to the kitchen, and two bedrooms with a bathroom sandwiched in the middle. It looks and feels like Lu Han, and Jongdae feels both comfortable and antsy at the same time.
“The guest room’s here,” Lu Han says, leaning against the door frame and waving a hand. He has one of his small, soft smiles on, one that Jongdae hasn’t seen for a long while, ever since the sheer pressure of being an image had pressed heavily down onto their backs. But part of it was gone now, and Jongdae can see that Lu Han was straightening himself back up.
Jongdae tugs his suitcase inside, then stands in the middle and simply looks around. There’s a bed and a bedside table, a pair of closets against a wall, an almost-empty bookcase and a pile of boxes, but other than that the room looks completely void of life.
“You’re staying two weeks, right?” Lu Han asks.
“Yeah,” Jongdae replies. He spots their albums on one of the lower shelves, and squats down to look at them closer. MAMA, XOXO, Growl, Miracles of December–
“You know, you can stay a bit longer,” Lu Han says, and Jongdae stands up.
“It’s okay, I really don’t want to impose,” Jongdae tells him. He tries to make it light, lets out a chuckle, and sees Lu Han’s smile dims a little.
Lu Han orders in pizza for them both that evening. Jongdae sits on the couch in front of the television and watches as steam curls from the freshly baked dough and rises up, while Lu Han fiddles with the remote.
“I have no idea how to get the Korean channels,” Lu Han says, looking sheepish. He puts down the remote, the channel something about cooking. Yixing’s face pops up all of a sudden, and Jongdae bursts out laughing.
“Oh my god, is he on a cooking show again?” He asks.
Lu Han grins. “Yeah. China loves seeing him cook. He’s topping the polls as China’s Most Eligible Bachelor.”
“Wow,” Jongdae says, turning to Lu Han. “It took him four years, but I can’t believe he finally beat you.”
“Better late than never.” Lu Han shrugs, then leans down to push the pizza box towards Jongdae. “Might as well eat while watching a cooking show, huh?”
Jongdae picks up a slice, and returns Lu Han’s grin.
Beijing in June had always been too hot, too hazy, too suffocating. Jongdae had never been fond of summer, but he reserves a special place in his soul for his dislike for Beijing’s. As idols they were always chauffeured from one air-conditioned place to another, sheltered from the sweltering heat until they were unlucky enough to have an outdoor performance. Even then, they’d have an army of stylists and coordis to fan their sweat off. Initially, that had made Jongdae feel extremely uncomfortable – being treated like some kind of king – but he can’t deny that he misses the royal treatment just a bit.
“Come on,” Lu Han says, nudging him forward as they walk through Qianmen street. It’s a sweltering night, and there’s too many people all around them. Jongdae’s terrified that someone will recognise them and cause the crowd to converge on them, like what happened at the airport, so he keeps his head down and follows wherever Lu Han tells him to go.
They slip into a small alley, and there’s no one else but them and a couple of elderly folk that man the food stalls on each side.
“You’re tense,” Lu Han points out. He looks worried. “You want to talk about it?”
Jongdae shakes his head no. “It’s just hot,” he insists.
Lu Han stares at him for a while longer, then lets out the tiniest sigh that Jongdae almost misses. “Come on,” he says again, this time stepping forward and leading the way. “Let’s find some tanghulu instead.”
The air-conditioning in Lu Han’s apartment sputters and dies on Jongdae’s fourth day in Beijing, and he finds himself sitting in front of the fan laughing as Lu Han searches the internet for an air-conditioning repairman. The curses Lu Han makes reminds Jongdae of the time he’d first met the Chinese boys all those years ago, before they were sugar-coated with the idol persona. It feels a little as though the glaze has cracked and they’re back to being boys again, though Jongdae knows that there’s nothing they can do to get their youth back.
Lu Han lets out a groan, then tosses his phone aside and slides over to Jongdae in front of the fan. “Move over,” he orders.
“No way,” Jongdae says, putting his hands down so he’s firmly in place.
“I’m the owner of this house,” Lu Han insists, shoving his butt a little harder. “Move, Jongdae.”
“Well, I’m the guest, and as the host you should give me the fan,” Jongdae tells him. It feels great, bantering with Lu Han like this once more, all the awkwardness between them shoved aside for a while so they could just be two brats fighting for the fan on a hot summer’s day.
There’s a glint in Lu Han’s eyes, and Jongdae feels a familiar little thrill up his spine because he knows that Lu Han’s up to something. Years ago that would mean a prank on another member of EXO, or a round of hot, frenzied sex, but they’re no longer bandmates nor lovers and it makes Jongdae’s heart shrink just a tiny bit.
But then Lu Han kicks Jongdae in the thigh and he falls over to the side. He gets up and yells foul, then tries to shove Lu Han aside, but Lu Han’s planted himself firmly where Jongdae once was, closing his eyes and enjoying the breeze.
Eventually Lu Han manages to get hold of an air-conditioning repairman, but the earliest he can get them to come is the next morning. Since none of the units work in the apartment, Jongdae finds himself in the balcony next to Lu Han, bottles of beer and handfuls of memories spread out between them.
“I remember doing this a lot with Minseok before we debuted,” Lu Han says. He looks up at the sky, and Jongdae wants to laugh and tell him that Minseok’s not dead, that they can call him anytime between 1900 and 2200 KST and he’ll pick up.
“There weren’t any stars in Seoul’s night sky either,” Lu Han continues.
Jongdae looks up, and realises that he’s right. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s seen a night sky filled with stars. Perhaps at his grandparent’s place in Daejeon, but he hasn’t been there since the last chuseok.
“I read somewhere that some of the stars we see are already dead. It’s just that their light’s taking millions of years to reach us. But if you go out to meet them you’d find that there’s nothing there anymore,” Jongdae says.
Lu Han turns to look at him. He’s frowning. “That’s the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard, do you know that?”
Jongdae can’t help but throw his head back and laugh. He almost drops his bottle of beer, and puts it gingerly on the ground as he tries to pull himself together.
“Sorry.” He’s still grinning, and doesn’t sound apologetic to his own ears. “It just popped up in my head.”
Lu Han has one of those small, fond smiles on again, and Jongdae wants to kiss him so badly. There’s so much Jongdae wants for them, so much they’ve had in the past but lost, and he wonders if Lu Han wants the same.
Somehow Lu Han manages to find a single sleeping bag, and they spread it out on the balcony and lie down on it, listening to the non-quiet of the night – the occasional vehicle on the streets below, the muted blare of a television, the distant laughter of happy people. Jongdae lets it all lull him to sleep, but he ebbs back and forth between wakefulness and dreams.
Soon he finds himself staring at the curve of Lu Han’s lips as he sleeps, wanting nothing more than to be able to trace that slight scar on his lower lip. It’s been a long time since he’s really looked at Lu Han, at his long eyelashes resting against his skin, dark against light, a beautiful contrast; at the rise of his cheekbones and the curve of his cheeks; the line of his nose and the way his mouth opens a little as he dreams. He wants to be able to kiss every bit of Lu Han’s skin again, the way he’s done before all those years ago.
Jongdae turns away from Lu Han, finding it too ridiculous that he’s still desperately holding onto something that’s in the past. He feels embarrassed then, of himself and his desires, and thinks about his family instead – of his parents and Jongdeok and Sooyeon and Yoojung – and finally manages to fall back asleep.
Lu Han introduces Jongdae to a cafe run by a close friend of his. “Just in case you need a place alone to think,” he says, as they sit across each other with menus in their hands. “Since that’s what you came to Beijing for anyway.”
“Thanks,” Jongdae replies. It’s a really nice place, on the second storey of a not-so-new, yet not-old shophouse a ten minutes’ walk away from Lu Han’s apartment. It has big windows, letting light in yet at the same time providing privacy with blinds and strategically-placed tables. It reminds him of all the times he and Lu Han have grabbed coffee together between schedules and practices.
He swings his feet, and it nudges against Lu Han’s. The apology’s at the tip of his tongue, but is quickly swallowed when Lu Han reaches out and rests his hand on top of Jongdae’s.
“Whatever you’re looking for, I hope you find it soon,” he says.
Lu Han has a couple of post-production meetings and refilmings to do during the next few days, so Jongdae busies himself by catching up on his reading at the cafe. He’s made friends with the owner by now – a bubbly man by the name of Junhui who asks him about the books he’s reading and even teaches him how to make foam art on coffee.
“Just knock it gently on the countertop.” Junhui knocks once to show Jongdae how it’s done, then passes the metal milk jug over to Jongdae. He repeats the action, and Junhui shows him how to pour the milk out so the foam follows too.
“Swirl it, then knock it again, then tilt your cup and pour,” he says.
Jongdae does. It comes out more foam than milk, and the brown swirls don’t come out pretty at all, but Junhui commends him on a great first try anyway.
“Do that fifty more times and you’ll be able to make a decent cup,” he says, laughing and clapping Jongdae on the back. Jongdae laughs as well, feeling great that he’s learnt something new simply for the sake of learning. It makes him feel young again, that all those years he’d spent half-wasted being EXO’s Chen were coming back.
But then again it doesn’t rid him of how lost and confused he still feels.
summer-sleep.
Having Jongdae around somehow felt that time was standing still, that they were back to those stolen nights in hotel rooms where they knew nothing more than each other. Lu Han had made Jongdae his whole world in those moments, wanting nothing more than to just lie pressed skin to skin, lips to lips, soul to soul. It had been their decision to drift apart, feeling too guilty indulging in a happiness that their bandmates who were broken and hurt did not have.
But now that EXO was no more, that Chen and Luhan were no more, Lu Han wondered if he and Jongdae could be again.
He’s so lost in his thoughts while driving he hadn’t realised that he’d left his apartment without his wallet and phone, and makes a U-turn back. He parks his car by the road instead of going into the carpark and races upstairs, intending to grab the stuff he’s missed and leave.
He wonders if Jongdae’s already awake. While he’d usually be one of the first few up in the mornings when they were in EXO, without the burden of schedules he sleeps in, and Lu Han tries his best to go about his morning routine without waking him.
The first thing he notices when he steps into his apartment is the soft lilt of Jongdae’s voice, muffled slightly by the walls between them. He can’t recognise the song yet, but it makes something in Lu Han seize up. Sure, he’s heard Jongdae sing hundreds of thousands of times before, but not in this way.
Jongdae wasn’t singing for anyone, he was singing purely for himself. Lu Han steps past his room and leans against wall next to the bathroom door. He’s showering, naked, in there, Lu Han thinks dimly, but realises that that particular detail isn’t important. What is, though, is the rise and fall of Jongdae’s voice, of how much of himself he pours into his singing.
Lu Han realises that this isn’t a performance, and feels guilty all of a sudden for intruding on something that was possibly very private. But he can’t pull away, not when he wants so badly, and Jongdae is right there but he can’t reach out, doesn’t know how.
He closes his eyes and listens with his heart in his throat until the song ebbs away, then grabs his phone and wallet and slides out of the apartment.
The meeting drags on till the late afternoon, and Lu Han shoots Jongdae a text saying that he would be late.
Okay! Told Junhui and we’re having dinner, so I’ll see you later!
Something in Lu Han snaps a little. He pulls out Junhui’s number and starts texting him, but then wonders why on earth he’s being jealous. Jongdae isn’t his, hasn’t been for years and years, and moreover, Jongdae hadn’t said that it was a date.
He lets out a groan. One of the writers ask him what’s up, and he shakes his head and mutters out a nothing, sorry. She gives him a quizzical look, but doesn’t press it.
Lu Han checks the time on his phone. 6.30pm. Which meant that it would be 7.30pm in KST, or 1930 hours in army talk, which also meant that Lu Han could call Minseok. He leaves the room, pacing back and forth in the corridor, waiting for Minseok to pick up. He feels a bit guilty, calling his best friend only when he has boy problems, but he’s also the only one he can talk about Jongdae to.
“Hello?” Minseok greets, his voice bright. “Lu Han! I thought I’d never hear from you!”
“Hey Minseok-ie,” he greets back. “I’m so sorry, I’ve been busy.”
“With Jongdae?” Minseok asks. His voice is teasing, but Lu Han knows that Minseok just knows him too well.
“No, you ass,” he says instead. “With post-production for the sitcom.”
“Uh-huh,” Minseok says, sounding the complete opposite of convinced.
“Fine,” Lu Han admits. “He’s staying at my place, what else do you expect me to do?”
“WHOA,” Minseok exclaims. “Damn, Lu, you move fast. I wouldn’t have pegged you for the type, but I guess Jongdae’s still young, huh.”
“NO,” Lu Han practically shouts into his phone. Everyone around him turns to look at him, and he bows apologetically and disappears into a stairwell. “We haven’t done anything. I don’t know if he still wants…” He pauses. “Whatever we had back then.”
Minseok chuckles. “Trust me when I say he does, Lu Han. If he cared any less about EXO he would’ve just held onto you and never let you go.”
For some reason Lu Han buys a watermelon on the way back home. He hefts the giant fruit into the back seat of his car and drives home, thinking of those sweltering days in Seoul where the twelve of them would share a single large watermelon and it wouldn’t be enough.
And how it would be too much for the eleven of them the next summer.
They’ve made it some kind of routine to sit out in the balcony and drink beer and talk about anything and everything under the starless sky at night. Tonight was no different, though there’s a giant watermelon that joins them.
“I don’t know how to cut this,” Jongdae says, turning the watermelon around this way and that, his knife poised and ready to cut. “Do I just slice it in half?”
“I think so?” Lu Han says. He takes the knife from Jongdae. “Here, let me try.”
Lu Han slices the watermelon in half, then feels a little lost. “It looked so much easier when Kyungsoo and Chanyeol did it.”
“What if we just stick spoons in it and eat it like pudding or something,” Jongdae suggests. Lu Han thinks that’s a great idea that would save them from a headache and a giant mess, so he gets up to put the knife in the sink and grab the spoons.
They spend the next hour scooping into the watermelon and talking about their ex-bandmates, Jongdae sounding a little jealous to Lu Han at how adjusted they’ve become after EXO was no more.
“It’s funny how we talk more about EXO when EXO’s gone,” Lu Han muses as they lapse into silence.
Jongdae looks up at the dark sky. “Like the stars, I guess, you see their light but they don’t exist anymore.”
Lu Han drops his spoon to punch Jongdae on the shoulder. “Don’t compare us to dead stars, you asshole.”
Jongdae has three days left in Beijing, and Lu Han’s getting a little desperate. He tells his manager to cancel all of his schedules – a fitting for the press conference of his sitcom, and yet another post-production meeting – and stays home with Jongdae. He’d brought Jongdae to every single touristy spot imaginable, wearing odd hats and odder sunglasses in order to blend into the crowd of odd tourists, and finds himself laughing more than he’s ever had in the past few years.
“I don’t want to go back,” Jongdae tells him quietly that night.
“Then don’t,” Lu Han replies, feeling his heart catch in his chest. Stay with me, he wants to say so badly, but keeps his lips pressed shut.
They lapse into silence, and Lu Han feels it drag out, till it becomes too much, too loud, and he focuses on the other noises instead – of the drag of wheels on asphalt on the street below and the muted buzz of people talking in the distance –
“Tell me to stay.” Jongdae’s staring at him, his eyes filled with confusion and worry and hurt and loss.
“Stay with me,” Lu Han says. He feels something in him break. “Please.”
manner in which the petals are folded up therein before expansion; præfloration.
Jongdae changes his flight back to Seoul to some date way into the future that he can barely remember, then puts Lu Han’s iPad aside and leans back onto the couch, wondering what on earth he’d just done.
Lu Han’s sitting next to him, and there’s this gap between them that Jongdae doesn’t know how to bridge. It’s barely a couple of inches, but it makes him feel like they’re miles and miles apart.
Yixing’s on the television again, his dimple dancing on his right cheek as he presents a member of the audience his dish. Jongdae remembers a time when none of them had dared to consume his cooking, and now there’s lines that snake around the block for people just to get onto his show as part of the audience.
“He told me he bumped into Yifan the other day,” Lu Han says suddenly. “Said it felt like closure.”
None of them had spoken to Yifan ever since that day. Jongdae had tried to send him a text when they’d realised he’d really gone, but he’d pressed rapidly on the backspace and tossed his phone aside every time.
“What did they say to each other?” Jongdae asks.
“Nothing much.” Lu Han turns to him, and Jongdae can see that he, too, couldn’t decide how he felt about the whole situation. They’d been numbed over the years, Jongdae realises, the pain never really having left them, simply buried under the plethora of other responsibilities that they had to carry out.
“They said hi to each other and shook hands. Yifan said something about Yixing’s show, about how he’s tried one of the recipes and liked it, and Yixing praised Yifan’s drama in return,” Lu Han continues. “I told him that was very civil.”
“It’s a start,” Jongdae says. “I guess if I were to meet him too and that happened, it would feel like closure.”
Lu Han turns away then, staring back at the television. “I’d want to slap Yifan, just once.”
Jongdae turns to him, a little shocked.
“Just once,” Lu Han repeats. “For EXO.”
Jongdae calls home the day he’s supposed to leave. It’s Sooyeon who answers.
“Hey, ‘Dae,” she says, her voice light and chirpy. “How’s Beijing? Ready to come back home?”
“You know how it’s like,” Jongdae chuckles. They’ve been keeping up through texts as always, Jongdae sending her and Jongdeok pictures of everything he’s seen and done. “And no,” he adds after a pause. “I’m not going back. Not yet.”
Sooyeon doesn’t speak for a while. “Is this about Lu Han?”
“Jongdeok hyung told you,” Jongdae grits out.
“No, he didn’t,” Sooyeon says gently. “Jongdae, we’ve been friends longer than he and I have dated and married, you know. Give me some credit, geez.” She says the last part a little teasingly, and Jongdae relaxes.
“Yeah it is, a little. But then again, not really.” He takes a deep breath, and tells her everything.
Telling Sooyeon had been a huge relief. He would’ve told Baekhyun, but he didn’t want to shoulder his burden onto him, especially between his schedules and his wedding preparations. He leans back on the couch when he hangs up. Sooyeon had told him to talk to Lu Han, pull that much-used trope of we need to talk on him the next chance he gets.
Lu Han comes back exhausted from the press conference, and Jongdae offers to make him ramyeon. He feels vaguely domestic as he stirs the noodles in a pot, but in a different way from how he’d felt at him parents’ home.
In Siheung he’d felt like he was fulfilling his duties and responsibilities as a son, out of his love for his family and the obligations he has towards them, but here in Lu Han’s apartment he feels like he’s taking care of Lu Han out of the sheer desire to see him fed and healthy and happy.
He chuckles to himself. Healthy, he thinks, looking at the instant noodles.
When he’s done he brings the pot and chopsticks out to the balcony, while Lu Han grabs drinks. He shifts the stuff that’s started to clutter the small space – a stool atop which a bottle opener lies, the scrunched up sleeping bag, a cheap telescope Lu Han had bought a week before – and arranges the pot in the middle of it.
Lu Han comes back with a bowl of ice and two bottles of beer.
“What’s that for?” Jongdae asks, nodding at the ice and taking one of the bottles.
“Beer wasn’t cold enough,” Lu Han says, putting the bowl away from the hot pot. “Remember when we used to chew on ice when the water dispenser ran out?”
Jongdae grins. He remembers. He’d just entered SM back then, and the dance studio was always filled with people. Managing to get a cup of water during break was a miracle, and even if you do, it usually wasn’t cold. So Chanyeol came up with the ingenious idea to buy a bag of ice from the nearby convenience store and share it.
It had been extremely refreshing, and still is, Jongdae thinks, as he munches on ice while the ramyeon cools. Lu Han munches noisily next to him, and for a moment Jongdae thinks of them as lost, scared trainees again.
Except they’ve gone through the whole idol experience and come out changed, different, older, and he realises that the Lu Han and Jongdae who sat next to each other chewing ice seven years ago aren’t the same Lu Han and Jongdae who sit next to each other chewing ice now.
“You’re pensive while chewing ice,” Lu Han says. He sounds a little nervous.
Jongdae turns to him and thinks of his conversation with Sooyeon that morning, then of his conversation with Lu Han years ago.
“I wonder how many times we’ve changed,” he says simply, letting the words hang in the air. He swallows the ice, not wanting to chew it any longer, and it burns a cold trail down his throat.
Lu Han swallows too, and looks away. “I don’t think I’m the same person, Jongdae.”
Jongdae feels his stomach sink, the hurt sitting deep and heavy and the bottom. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve been through so much, and we– I’ve changed, Jongdae. I’m not the same person I was four years ago.” He looks down. “You don’t want me now. I’m not the same person.”
“Hyung, no,” Jongdae says, turning to him and pushing the bowl of ice aside so he can really, really look at Lu Han. “What I meant was – both of us aren’t the same person. I’ve changed too. And that’s okay.”
Lu Han doesn’t look up, but Jongdae’s hurting in a different way now – for Lu Han, because he doesn’t know just how much Jongdae aches for him. He reaches out to cup Lu Han’s cheek in his hand, then pulls him close and presses his lips on Lu Han’s.
It’s cold, but there’s a fantastic warmth that’s seeping through him, spreading out to his fingers and toes. Lu Han places a hand on Jongdae’s waist and kisses back, holds him close, fingers pressing as though holding on, terrified to let go.
When they break apart, Jongdae rests their forehead together.
“I will always want you, hyung,” he breathes out, and feels Lu Han letting out a little sigh against his lips.
As much as Jongdae would like to say that everything simply clicks into place after he and Lu Han get together, he has to admit that he still doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life by the time his one-month visa runs out.
“I’ll come back,” he promises Lu Han, threading their fingers together as they lie in bed, sheets tangled between their legs and the heady heat of summer surrounding them. He raises Lu Han’s hand to his lips and kisses them, one by one, until Lu Han snatches his hand back.
“I’m not your kept man, asshole,” he says, grinning. “I’m going back with you.”
Jongdae gapes. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not,” he rolls around and grabs his phone off his bedside table. “I wasn’t intending to anyway, since, I quote myself am not your kept man, but Sehun gave me a pretty damn good reason.” He holds up his phone, and it’s a message.
Hyung help my girlfriend’s pregnant and our parents want us to get married but idk what to do hyung help me idk who else to ask everyone else will just make fun of me hyung help me pls
Sehun’s wedding happens seven weeks after the frenzied text to Lu Han. Naturally, it spreads to the rest of EXO the day Lu Han and Jongdae land at Incheon. Baekhyun is a little pissed that Sehun had gotten the title of first married member of EXO, but unruffles when he realises that it is, after all, shotgun.
“Don’t look down on shotgun weddings,” Sehun bristles. “Jieun and I will last forever.”
It’s interesting how quickly they all fall back into place after drifting for so long, Jongdae thinks, as he fixes his bowtie in the mirror and watches as the rest of his ex-bandmates bicker behind him. Minseok switches caps next to him, frowning at the brown fedora, then takes it off entirely.
“Looks like I just have to go bald, then,” he says with a mock sigh.
“You’re our nation’s soldier,” Jongdae says, nudging him.
“Soon you will be too,” Minseok reminds him, smirking. “So you’d better spend the remnants of your civilian time with Lu Han while you can.”
Jongdae frowns at him. “I really hope I won’t start talking like you once I go in,” he says.
Minseok chuckles. “You can try to resist, bro, but it’ll suck you in.”
They lapse into silence then, and Jongdae’s phone buzzes. He pulls it out, and finds that it’s a text from Lu Han.
Got him. Will be there in 30. Pray for no jams.
Praying m(_ _)m, Jongdae replies, then slides his phone back into his pocket.
“Lu Han and Yixing hyung’s got him! They’ll be here in 30,” he announces to the room.
“That’s great, man,” Sehun says. “I’m nervous. Do you think it was a good idea to invite him?”
“Why are you nervous over that?” Junmyeon asks him, clapping him on the back. “You should be nervous over seeing Jieun in her dress.”
Sehun visibly gulps. “She wanted to murder me the other day. Said that she was getting too fat for her dress and it’s all my fault.”
“It is your fault, though,” Jongin reminds him. “Wear a condom the next time.”
Jongdae thinks of how happy Jongdeok and Sooyeon were when Yoojung was first born. “Don’t worry, Sehun, there won’t be a shred of regret in four months when you see your kid for the first time.”
Sehun looks even more tense. “Look, let’s not talk about kids yet, okay. I still don’t think I’ll make a good dad.”
“I still don’t think he deserves the title of first married member of EXO,” Baekhyun pipes up from where he’s half-sulking in an armchair at the corner of the room. “Taeyeon and I have been planning our wedding for years.”
“Whatever, Baekhyun,” it’s Chanyeol who surprises everyone by dismissing him. “Today’s Sehun’s day, so just shut the fuck up and be happy for him.”
That earns him a hard punch on the shoulder. Chanyeol sputters in pain, and Kyungsoo retaliates by pulling Baekhyun into a headlock, Zitao cheering him on.
Junmyeon shakes his head. “I’m going to grab a smoke,” he tells Jongdae. “Come with me?”
Jongdae takes a sweeping glance at the chaos that is the groomsmen’s hotel room, and decides why the hell not.
They go into a smoking lounge a couple of floors down. Junmyeon offers Jongdae a cig, but he declines.
“You’re still taking care of your voice,” he says, lighting up. “Been thinking about what you want to do yet?”
“I still have no clue, but I’m happy where I am,” Jongdae tells him honestly. “I’ve been teaching kids part-time at the music school near Lu Han’s apartment, and it’s nice.”
Junmyeon hmms, then takes a drag. Jongdae had thought he’d leave it at that, but then:
“SM has an opening for a vocal trainer. So if you’d like that, just let me know.”
Lu Han and Yixing appear a little over thirty minutes later, pushing the door open and announcing his presence with a yell of “WE’RE HERE!”
Everyone in the room freezes. Sehun drops his game controller, and Jongdae almost chokes on his drink. Zitao pricks himself on a pin, and yelps.
Jongdae had imagined this moment for years, all twelve of them together in the same room once more. He’d always thought it would be at the backstage of some awards show, but never at their youngest member’s wedding.
Yet here they are, getting up from where they’ve seated, watching as Yifan steps through the door and starts bowing. It’s extremely formal, as though they’d never sweat or cried or dreamed together, years and years of distance and bitterness making it difficult and putting a chasm between them.
But then Junmyeon takes a step forward and pulls Yifan into a hug. He barely comes up past Yifan’s shoulder, and Yifan looks perplexed and terrified at the same time. It’s so silent that Jongdae swears he can hear a pin drop, but then Yifan wraps his arms around Junmyeon’s tiny frame and holds him close.
Sehun gets up then, joining them, wrapping his arms around both their shoulders. The three of them stay that way for a while, but then finally let go of each other.
Yifan’s eyes are glistening with tears, and Jongdae really, really, really wants to laugh, because after everything that’s happened, and everything that’s changed, the fact that Wu Yifan is a giant sap still hasn’t changed. He moves over to Yifan then, pulling him into a hug, then giving him a squeeze round his shoulders.
“Hey guys,” Yifan greets them all, his voice thick and his eyes filled with tears. It spills, and he wipes them with the back of his hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“Do you think we’ll ever have this?” Jongdae asks Lu Han much later, after Sehun and Jieun have kissed and Junmyeon and Yifan have cried as though they were Sehun’s parents and not Mr and Mrs Oh. All the courses of the dinner has been served and eaten and the cake has been cut.
Lu Han looks around, then presses a kiss on the top of Jongdae’s head. He grabs Jongdae’s hand under the table, curling their fingers together and giving it a squeeze.
“Someday, when the world is more accepting,” he says, just as the lights start to darken and Sehun and Jieun step out to have their first dance. “Until then, we’ll always have us.”
Jongdae feels his heart swell with so much love, all for Lu Han. He slides a hand around Lu Han's waist and pulls him close for a kiss just as the music starts, not caring about the people around them, content with losing themselves in each other.
Author's note: this fic was basically all the headcanons b and i have of exo after they disband. i know tons of people think that post-disbandment fic has to be angsty, but i did try my best to make this a lighthearted read. i absolutely adored this prompt and all its lovely little elements. i hope i’ve managed to weave in as much as you wanted in this fic! writing it was such a joy, so thank you so much, dear prompter! definition of aestivation from this post.