The iPhone in Junmyeon’s hand was starting to overheat. He had the brightness full, and he was scrolling through twitter. It didn’t help that it was mid-July and the sun had intentions of baking everybody into cakes. He shook his legs out of impatience and wiped some sweat off of his forehead with the back of his left hand, which was clutching a light-up Chen poster. He thought about swapping his phone in between both hands to cool it down, but the Chen poster was far too important.

He was standing in line to the Seoul Olympic Gymnasium, a line that stretched nine blocks throughout the park and he was lucky enough to be in the fifth block.

Junmyeon was tucked behind a short blonde girl wearing a white EXO mouth mask. She also sported light blue denim shorts, revealing dozens of red splotches on her legs. Junmyeon blinked and frowned, hiding his judgement behind the overheating phone. It had become a mask to him for all sorts of situations when he felt his gaze had to be hidden. He felt bad for her, but she didn’t seem to itch at all. Junmyeon’s frown deepened as he noticed her black EXO snapback.

How unoriginal of her, thought Junmyeon, because he was wearing the exact same EXO snapback.

Junmyeon had been a fan of EXO since before their debut. He’s seen all twenty three teasers and never considered skipping any of the Kai ones. He played Mama, History, and What is Love on repeat for two weeks straight until the entire album came out. He even ranked all of his favorite songs from the Mama album, with Machine being number one. His obsession with EXO almost died until XOXO came out of nowhere and he was back in.

Ugh, stupid, beautiful boys.

Junmyeon couldn’t pick a favorite song from XOXO because they were all too good. You had Wolf featuring all the members. Baby Don’t Cry became his go-to sad song for reading sad fanfics. 3.6.5, Don’t Go, and Peter Pan were his favorite happy songs. He loved Let Out the Beast and My Lady alike. XOXO was probably his favorite album. How he came to stan Chen, though, was a much longer story.

Junmyeon made sure to wear three layers of sunscreen because he knew he would be waiting in the line until his bones crumbled. He felt out of place compared to the girl in front of him. She was lucky because her bones appeared too young to crumble. She still had a few lifetimes left in her to be an EXO-L. Plus, all of his idols always described their ideal types as females, so her gender was another advantage.

Junmyeon sighed. When was this line going to move forward? When is the heat going to stop beating down on him?

“EXO member lightsticks!” A clear voice called from five people behind him. “Ten thousand won each!”

Junmyeon swore head turned faster than it ever did when a teacher caught him nodding off during class in elementary school.

“Last one of Chen! Who wants it?” The light-haired girl with an unhooked mouth mask called. She was standing outside of the line with a several other girls who were also selling. She scanned her eyes up and down the long line. “Ten thousand won!”

Just as Junmyeon took out ten thousand won from his wallet, a very thin voice rose from the person standing directly behind him.

“I do!” It was a boy, the first boy he’d seen in three blocks. Before his action registered with Junmyeon, he came to face a very deep dimple that he almost mistook for a third eye. Junmyeon jumped a little, but slightly berated himself when he realized it was just a dimple.

Looking up, the boy’s hair was a shiny, healthy chestnut color that stuck out very pleasantly from under a plain white snapback.

Suddenly the boy turned to him with the light stick in hand, face still beaming from his new catch and unaware of the spiteful expression in front of him. Junmyeon’s anger must have been very apparent on his face, because the boy looked apologetic for a split second. Looking back at the lure of the light stick, the apologetic look immediately disappeared.

“I wanted that,” said Junmyeon. Usually, Junmyeon would never say something he deemed so selfish, but this was Kim Jongdae. Chen. This was his bias. His dinosaur baby. His favorite person in the world.

“Sorry, but he’s my ultimate bias,” the boy said simply.

As if that gave him the right to take what belonged to someone else.

“Um,” Junmyeon felt his chest heat up. “Excuse me? I’ve been a fan of them before they even debuted.”

“Same,” shrugged the boy, who Junmyeon noticed was just a few centimeters taller than him. “I know every single song from every single album.”

“So do I,” Junmyeon eyed him. “Just so you know, I made this for Chen.” He held up his light up poster. “I don’t see your light up poster.”

The boy rolled his eyes and ped his hoodie. He pulled it apart to reveal a black t-shirt with C-H-E-N arranged in small lights. Junmyeon could faintly see wires underneath the glossy beads.

A light up shirt?! Are you kidding me??

Junmyeon sighed, “Listen here, boy-”

“My name is Yixing,” he clarified.

“You look young. How about be respectful and at least let me buy it off of you?” Junmyeon offered.

“No. How old are you anyways?” Yixing asked suspiciously.

Junmyeon blinked, feeling a little more self conscious than before.

“Nineteen,” he said. Publically announcing his age made him confront the fact that he should be dedicated to studying at his university instead of chasing young idols around. It was a bit of a touchy subject to talk about. His roommate, Kun, never let him hear the end of it. “You know what, keep it. I don’t care. It’s just a stupid light stick.”

Yixing snorted from behind him. Junmyeon gripped his poster tightly. If he wasn’t holding his phone and trying to stay as classy as possible for Chen’s sake, he would have punched that kid’s smug face without a second thought.

“Plus, I learned the dances to all of their songs,” comes Yixing.

ing extra little .

“Ok now you’re just asking for it!” Junmyeon yelled. The short girl standing in front of him glanced up at him in shock. Her eyes just grew twice in size. If she wanted surgery for her eyes, well, Junmyeon just did her a favor and saved her millions of won.

-

It was raining by the time the concert finished and Junmyeon’s face was raining as well, because he was in the same room as Chen and they were breathing in the same air and he was so beautiful and his smile was the most radiant thing and his voice and Junmyeon burst into tears as soon as he saw him oh god-

Oh.

Dimple boy was standing just a few meters away from him. He seemed to be huffing and wiping his eyes as well. He didn’t bring an umbrella with him, so his hair was getting pushed down by the rain under his white snapback.

That’s for taking my light stick. Junmyeon flipped up the hoodie of his portable poncho and walked away.

Junmyeon had been a fan of Chen since seeing What is Love, aftering hearing him sing in Chinese. Initially it had been about his impressive vocal range. From there, Junmyeon learned the entire EXO-M album and almost committed to a four-year course of Chinese because of Chen. Chen always looked good no matter what the stylists did. Any hairstyle looked beautiful on him. He could make any concept look cool.

It was always the smile that got to Junmyeon the most. He’s never seen anyone’s smile turn up the way Chen’s smile did. If his future husband’s smile didn’t look like Chen’s, he wouldn’t marry him at all.

Following every comeback, Junmyeon stayed loyal to EXO’s variety shows, even the Chinese ones. When he couldn’t find Korean subtitles, which was often the case, he nagged Kun, to translate for him. Chen smiled the most on those variety shows.

Then came Xiumin and Chen’s vacation together. There’s a whole other volume of embarrassing stories about what happened when Junmyeon discovered Xiuchen. It involved lots of cats and poor Kun being forced to listen to Junmyeon’s fanfiction rants.

What a good choice he made to trust his heart with Chen, and what a good choice he made to trust Chen’s heart with Xiumin.

Junmyeon booked the hotel nearest to the Seoul Olympic Gymnasium. He booked as soon as he snatched the GA tickets for the concert. He was dismayed to find out that he booked one of the last rooms left, which meant he wasn’t the earliest fan to book there, which meant he wasn’t the most devoted EXO-L.

He had to push his body against the revolving doors to his hotel because both of his hands were full carrying the nearly six hundred thousand won worth of merchandise he bought at the venue.

Dripping with water from his poncho, he lined up behind the other fans who arrived before him.

And to think, there are five more days to this! Junmyeon considered himself the luckiest soul on earth to see EXO live. Of course, he might not be as lucky (or devoted) as that Issing kid or whatever his name was. Afterall, he got the last Chen light stick and made a light up T-Shirt. All throughout the stadium, Junmyeon could see glow sticks of other members. Hell, he even stood next to a girl with a Sehun glow stick. It was torture to know he didn’t have one the whole time. Even the spare-time fans had glow sticks. It just wasn't fair that the Issing kid had to have everything.

Damn it, why wasn’t he more creative with his poster?

“Hi!” Greeted the lady at the front desk. It knocked Junmyeon out of his thoughts and back into the present situation. “Are you checking in as well?”

“Yes. My name is Kim Junmyeon.” He put on the most polite expression he could.

“Kim Junmyeon? You have room 609. Here are your keys.” The receptionist slid a glossy folded envelope towards Junmyeon with the wifi password written inked a blank spot against the gold paper.

He was about to enter the elevator when the receptionist called him again.

“Mr. Kim!”

Junmyeon turned around just in time to catch dimple boy right up at the receptionist. He saw the glint of an uncomfortable smile on Yixing’s face.

Oh god.

“Would you please come back here for a second?” Asked the receptionist. “I’m afraid there’s been some sort of error with your room.”

Junmyeon’s stomach dropped. Why today of all days?