A/N: I've decided to not make the titles show along the side of the fic bc that'd ruin the surprise of 2 endings for new readers, so there WILL still be titles in the body of the ch, but not in the header from this point on. Enjoy 5.6k of more alt timeline!

Ch 25(ii) – A Shift in Atmospheric Pressure

NA Exo'rdium Tour

The next few days are kind of surreal. Kai actually initiates interactions with D.O., tickling him from behind on stage in Chicago. Kyungsoo tolerates it until it gets to be a bit much and finally gets a few harsh pokes into the other’s shoulder before they let it lie, but it leaves him in smiles. His heart swells being back in the other’s good graces. The singer’s still not sure what changed Jongin’s attitude all of a sudden, but he’s not complaining. They’re not given seats next to each other on the flight to New York, as Kyungsoo’s in a row with Sehun and Jaehyuk, but he hears Jongin bullying the maknae into switching with him right before they board the plane.

“Geez, pulling age on me? What’s your problem, Jongin?” Sehun grumbles while shuffling around to get to the other row with Chanyeol and Jongdae.

“Sehunnie, come here and help me decide which pics to upload to Instagram!” calls the giant, pulling the maknae into a brotherly hug and into their row.

Jongin just sticks his tongue out at the younger before settling down in the aisle seat next to Kyungsoo who’s sitting in the center. Jaehyuk, in the window seat, observes this and raises an eyebrow at Kyungsoo. ‘Should I intervene?’ he seems to be asking.

The singer subtly waves him off. ‘It’s okay.’ The manager frowns a little but returns to his phone and doesn’t say anything. It’s a short flight.

Jongin turns excitedly to Kyungsoo. “Hyung, I listened to the new Station song you did, and I LOVE – oh. Hi Jaehyuk-hyung.” The dancer’s tone drops almost all semblance of friendliness as he addresses the manager.

Kyungsoo turns to see why Jaehyuk got such a cold greeting and notices that the manager is scowling at Jongin, despite the older boy’s reassurance that he can stay out of things right now.

“Jongin-ah, I believe you were assigned a different seat.” Jaehyuk’s tone makes it clear this isn’t an observation but a reproach.

“I’m sorry, am I really not allowed to talk to someone who is just another group member of mine? I can’t so much as make friendly conversation on a plane, out of view from the press and other prying eyes?” There’s a bit too much bite in Jongin’s words, and the accusation being leveled at Jaehyuk is pretty blatant. This newfound audacity leaves Kyungsoo somewhat dumbstruck.

Quickly recovering, Kyungsoo intervenes, reminding them both in a calm voice, “We’re blending in right now and no one here wants to cause a scene. Everything’s fine, and we’re about to take off, so... let’s just fly to New York in peace, right?” He turns to the manager so Jongin can’t see him and sends him a questioning look, mouthing, ‘What are you doing? Leave it alone.’

His mediation seems to work as Jaehyuk goes back to his phone after one last wary look at Jongin.

The dancer scowls at the manager once he’s not looking but then turns his attention back on Kyungsoo and relaxes a little. “As I was saying, the song you did with Yoo Youngjin is great. You sound so amazing, hyung.”

“Thanks,” Kyungsoo gulps, trying to keep the tips of his ears from turning red especially under the watchful gaze of the manager who seems overly zealous to ‘help’ him avoid Jongin today. He decides to change the focus back onto the other to avoid that (and familiar deep emotions from bubbling back up). “You did a great job throughout Choco Bank; the last episode the other day was especially cute.”

Jongin seems shocked. “You watched my webdrama?”

, Kyungsoo hadn’t meant to give away that much, just to shift attention away from himself to escape that eternal encourager role Jongin likes to play which melts his heart so much. He reaches for a joke as a diversion. “Well, yeah. You’re the one who doesn’t watch the members’ individual projects. The rest of us pretty regularly keep up with what’s going on,” he teases.

Jongin whines. (‘Damn it, why’s he so adorable when he’s whiny.’) “Hyuuuung, you say that but I’ve either watched your projects or didn’t need to because I heard you practice the lines countless times and knew you’d be great.”

“Well if that’s true, I guess we’ll see with Pure Love. You never heard me read lines for that, so by your logic you should see that one. It comes out this weekend, you know. Are you going to see it?” He’s mostly just bantering, but a small part of him keens for Jongin’s approval.

The younger boy drops his eyes to his hands and he fidgets. “I don’t know. I have mixed feelings about that particular project…”

The silence that follows is stifling. After a few seconds, Jaehyuk breaks the awkward atmosphere with a bossy interjection. “Speaking of Pure Love, don’t forget that right after we get back, you’ve got stage greetings at various theaters for the opening shows, Kyungsoo. Your schedule is full from the moment we land until we fly out to Indonesia on the 26th.”

“Okay. Thanks,” he acknowledges.

Jongin grumbles something to himself that sounds an awful lot like, “you work too much,” but Kyungsoo chooses to ignore it. They spend the next hour of the short flight engaged in their own distractions of music and reading material, until Jongin pokes his cheek to get his attention. “Have you been listening to the new Bieber album?” the younger asks.

“No, actually. I haven’t had time…” he says with chagrin, knowing he’s only feeding more truth into Jongin’s earlier line about him working too much.

But the dancer doesn’t harp on it, simply nodding. “Here – I’ve been listening to this one a lot lately.” He removes his left earphone and gently fixes it in Kyungsoo’s left ear so that they’re now sharing the headphones that are plugged into the younger’s phone. Jongin’s fingers ghost along the shell of his ear and down the cord of his neck as he pulls away, causing Kyungsoo to shiver. He tries to cover it up with a cough while the dancer cues up the song.

“What do you mean? Oh, oh
When you nod your head yes
But you wanna say no
What do you mean? Hey-ey
When you don't want me to move
But you tell me to go
What do you mean?”

Kyungsoo takes an unsteady breath as the meaning settles in. He feels Jongin’s stare boring into the side of his face, carefully watching for his reaction. He turns to meet the younger’s eyes, which are filled with warmth and purpose. ‘He’s… figuring me out.’ This realization is thrilling. And terrifying. Maybe he’s been more obvious than he thought. His mind can’t sort through what all this means though, because their eyes are locked together in that all-too-familiar way, with a force beyond either of them them into a dizzying eddy of emotion. Kyungsoo’s drowning in the heaviness of it all, feeling his eyelids droop without permission as he’s falling forward…

Just before their noses touch, a flight attendant chirps from the aisle, “Would anyone like some water before we land?”

Kyungsoo jerks back, earbud popping out from the jolting motion, and squeaks out a little too loudly, “Yes please!” His throat is so dry, he guzzles the water quickly. Jongin also accepts a glass, much more smoothly than the older. Settled back in their own personal spaces now, Kyungsoo doesn’t dare make eye contact with the younger again.

Suddenly, he feels his left elbow get bumped on the arm rest. Jongin has casually perched his right elbow on the arm rest in between their seats as he reads the same in-flight magazine from a few days ago. Kyungsoo dismisses the light bump as an accident, but then the younger boy is slowly sliding his arm forward and gradually shoving Kyungsoo’s arm off the rest completely. In shock, the singer looks up to see a mischevious smirk on the other’s face. ‘This brat,’ he thinks with endless amusement. Feeling a stupid sense of competitiveness, he stretches his limbs upward for a moment before bringing his left elbow down swiftly and knocking Jongin’s arm off the rest completely in a surprise attack. The dancer chuckles and the next minute is spent with them each jockeying for more territory on the arm rest. Jongin’s not afraid to play dirty, and he tickles the older’s ribs, causing him to spazz sideways into Jaehyuk while the younger boy gloats over his victory, clutching the seat divider with a death grip and laughing at Kyungsoo’s posture, one hand covering his ribs protectively and the other up in “stop” motion to intercept any further attempts at tickling.

Jaehyuk clears his throat and in a low, firm tone growls out, “STOP. FLIRTING.”

Kyungsoo’s not sure if it’s directed at him, at Jongin, or at them both, but he’s suitably cowed. Lowering his head, he packs his stuff up in his carry-on bag under the seat in front of him as the pilot is announcing their imminent landing anyhow. When he sits back up, Jongin has raised the arm rest, perhaps to remove the temptation of sparring again. Or maybe for different intentions, as he feels the boy’s warm, muscular thigh snug up against his as the dancer spreads out a bit in his seat...

As they’re deplaning, Jongin skips down the jetway a few feet in front of Kyungsoo, who’s followed by their manager. Maybe the older’s eyes have wandered a little too far south on the bouncing figure in front of him, or maybe it’s just because of what’s already happened on the flight, but something spurs Jaehyuk to lean in from behind the singer. He whispers in a warning tone, “Kyungsoo, what are you—“

“Not now. I know,” he hisses back. Kyungsoo knows exactly what the manager is going to say, going to remind him about, and he just doesn’t want to think about it in this moment. Not when Jongin is turning around to make sure Kyungsoo’s still there and flashing him one of his sweetest smiles, which he returns automatically. Is it really so wrong for Kyungsoo to feed his own soul for a little while, to let his starved heart enjoy a few morsels of affection from the boy who means the world to him? (Probably. But the weight of reality has no hold on him right now when his heart’s still soaring high above the clouds.)

Jetlag be damned; Kyungsoo decides that he likes flying after all.

---------------------------------------

Jongin is thrilled with how well things turned out in the final North American tour leg. Once he started treating Soo like a friend, the other responded incredibly well. Okay, to be fair, the dancer might have aimed for slightly-more-than friendly intimacy. Even friendly gestures like sharing a water bottle were really ploys to get indirect kisses via contact with the mouth of the bottle. (‘Don’t judge me, I haven’t had those glorious lips directly on mine in 6 weeks now,’ he argues with the teasing voice in his head.)

He’s tickled that Kyungsoo went through with his proposal to do Michael Jackson moves in New York during Peter Pan. It was even the older’s idea to tip their hats down in “Smooth Criminal” style to complete the homage. Goofing around like this made it almost feel like old times. It’s not happening over night, but it seems like each interaction, no matter how brief, is like taking one step closer to each other.

He notices Jaehyuk hovering around Kyungsoo a little more than usual now, though, which makes him resent the manager more than he already does as the man successfully thwarts some of his attempts to be near his hyung. Almost as if the manager anticipates Jongin’s plan to sit with the singer on the long plane ride home to Seoul, the dancer finds himself paired off with Junmyeon while Kyungsoo is assigned to sit with Jaehyuk himself near the front of the plane. The younger boy pouts upon this discovery, but he isn’t quite bold enough to actually request his leader to try and switch seats with Kyungsoo (and he knows trying to swap with Jaehyuk is a lost cause). He mopes through much of the flight, settling on trying to sleep through as many hours as possible and agreeing with some grumbles to practice his English one more time with the leader. Junmyeon has gotten really good at the tricky language, and they’ve still got another stop in Indonesia next week where it’ll be useful. Jongin reminds the leader that it’s not like he’s a talkative guy to begin with, so he doesn’t really need to learn a lot more, but Junmyeon tuts back.

“It’s not just a good skill for ments, Jongin-ah. It can come in handy in the future for all kinds of other things, both personally and professionally. You need to take a long-term view of it.”

The younger boy groans. “Why does everyone think I don’t understand the concept of long-term consequences? I promise, I get it.”

His leader chuckles. “Sorry, I guess we just still see you as the dongsaeng who will overwork himself in pursuit of perfection not realizing that you’re going to end up injured and then unable to perform at all. But I’m not trying to sound overly negative here: you’re passionate, Jongin, and that’s a gift. Not everyone has that kind of fire. You just have to learn how to manage it, when to let it blaze and when to make it simmer. Sometimes the slow burn of steady, devoted efforts gives you better results in the long run.”

Jongin ponders this, not just with respect to his work but to the beautiful pale-skinned boy sitting a few rows up, bundled up in a hoodie and sleeping on his seat tray. “I can harness it. I can be more strategic when I need to be, and jus