Jongin isn’t sure when he started first being afraid of planes. His parents tell him that when he was a baby he’d always cry on planes, and this continued well into his middle school years. It never really stopped, only Jongin stopped going on planes. The last time he’d flew on one was for a mandatory high school trip, which was six years ago. Chanyeol had been with him, noticing for the first time how scared of planes Jongin is.

And Jongin is not ready to revisit the fear. Not only had the wedding been brought up suddenly, he couldn’t refuse when Chanyeol asked him to be the best man. And since the bride’s family refuses to travel, they are forced to fly over on an 11 hour flight.

“Boarding pass please.” The man says, and Jongin blinks at him. He barely registers how pretty the flight attendant is. All his attention is focused on the fact that this is it. Once he hands in his boarding pass there is no going back.

He glances in panic at Chanyeol, who gives him a reassuring smile. Jongin swallows nervously and hands the boarding pass to the flight attendant. The boarding pass is ripped, Jongin stiffening at the sound. He robotically takes the cut off piece, and follows Chanyeol through what he calls the “tunnel of death.”

“Just breathe.” Chanyeol advises, and Jongin nods slightly. His senses feel like they’re on overdrive. He can already hear the light hum of the plane, waiting to take off. Images flash in Jongin’s mind of the plane losing power and crashing down into the water, and the flight attendant’s plastic smile as they assure him “we’re just going through some light turbulence.” Jongin focuses on his feet, trying to get rid of his morbid thoughts. Taking one step in front of the other.

“Right. Left.” Jongin mumbles to himself in time with his footsteps. “Left. Right. Left.” He continues, keeping his head down, staring at the carpeted floor below him. He vaguely remembers Chanyeol reassuring him and giving him an encouraging smile, waving goodbye as they separated. He remembers a flight attendant guiding him to his seat, and passing by strangers stuffing luggage into compartments.

Jongin quickly finds himself standing in front of his seat. He gratefully drops into it, not bothering to say hello to his seat partner. He immediately clicks in his seatbelt, and puts his bag on the floor in front of him, not before grabbing his earphones and phone.

Jongin notices his seat partner turning towards him, probably about to speak which is exactly what he doesn’t want. Before the man beside him can get a word in, Jongin has his earphones in and is leaning back in his chair. He closes his eyes, hoping his four Xanax will somehow calm the frenzied butterflies in his stomach.

----

Junmyeon repositions himself, his legs now sore from the weight of Yixing’s head. His movement earns a grunt from the co-pilot, and Junmyeon immediately freezes, afraid of waking the other man though he isn’t sure why. The plane will be taking off soon, and he can’t do it alone, so Yixing will have to wake up eventually.

“Just a few more minutes,” Junmyeon mumbles under his breath. Despite his aching legs, and embarrassment at the whole situation, he doesn’t want this practical stranger to wake up.

Junmyeon tells himself it’s out of pity. He feels bad for Yixing, who probably came from a long flight and all he wanted to do was sleep and now he has to fly again. Junmyeon is doing Yixing a favour by letting him sleep. Yes. That’s it.

And so Junmyeon should be glad when Yixing blinks his eyes open tiredly, lifting his head slowly. Junmyeon should be thankful that his co-pilot finally woke up and no longer needs a place to lie down. Junmyeon should be happy, but as Yixing awkwardly apologizes and introduces himself, moving to sit in his co-pilot chair, Junmyeon only misses the feeling of Yixing’s head on his thigh.

----

“Move.” Yifan commands, and the passengers in front of him immediately separate, terrified.

Yifan smirks. Too easy. Briefcase in hand, tightly tailored suit on, hair slicked back, Yifan is exactly where he likes to be: in power.

He glances at his boarding pass, and then at the numbered sign, and then at his seat. There’s already someone sitting at the window seat, irritating Yifan, but he brushes it off.

Yifan takes his seat, and his seat partner gives him a polite nod, to which Yifan doesn’t respond. He learned that from his father, who told him that nodding back at someone is the same as putting yourself on their level, when you so clearly are not. And he needs to establish dominance minute one.

The other man doesn’t seem to care about the unreturned nod, and instead begins applying makeup. Yifan nearly snorts in derision as the other man stares wide eyed at his hand mirror, and begins dabbing at his eye bags.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter to him. As long as the makeup-freak doesn’t bother him, Yifan doesn’t care. He wastes no time and pulls out the laptop from his briefcase and brings down the small table, opening his laptop and placing it on the surface. Yifan waits patiently for his device to boot up, stealing glances at the man beside him who has now moved on to a small brush and is rubbing it in a coloured palette, which he then applies to his eyelids. The man, seemingly dissatisfied with the small handheld mirror, pulls out his phone and checks his reflection in it. Yifan notices with disdain that the phone has an attached keychain, and he recognizes it as a Huang Corporation product.

Yifan groans, just the sight of the keychain bringing him pain. Then again, of course it’s the man applying makeup in a plane who owns a keychain from the corporation Yifan despises. The two qualities go hand in hand.

Yifan curses his unluckiness, and then finds a small comfort in the fact that the other man will probably be so glued to his makeup and phone that he won’t find any time to engage in conversation.

As soon as Yifan sees his laptop’s desktop loaded, he immediately opens up downloaded documents, saved emails and assignments, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

“Umm, sir you can’t have your table out, or your device on for takeoff.” A flight attendant says, appearing beside Yifan. He seems nervous, probably having noticed Yifan commanding passengers to moving aside.

Yifan sighs, turning to the flight attendant, his eyes narrowed. “Oh Sehun, is it?”

“Y-Yes…” Sehun swallows nervously.

“First days on the job are always nerve wracking, aren’t they?”

Sehun widens his eyes in surprise, “How did you-”

“I’m a good judge of character. And if you’re as smart as you think you are, then you’ll keep walking down this aisle, and not look back.”

Sehun slightly smiles, expecting the other man to suddenly burst into laughter at the joke. But instead, Yifan raises his eyebrows expectantly, his expression serious.

“Ummm, I…” Sehun starts confusedly.

“Sehun!”

Sehun turns to the sound of the voice, and he sees Xiumin waving at him from several rows down, gesturing for him to come.

Sehuns glances back at Yifan, who is still staring at him, and then back at Xiumin. Eventually, frustrated, he turns away from Yifan and walks away.

Yifan chuckles lowly to himself, turning his attention back to the open emails on his laptop.

“.” The man beside him mutters.

“Excuse me?”

The man turns to face Yifan, a smile plastered on his face. “Nothing.” He answers, and for some reason his expression only unsettles Yifan, who nods awkwardly and turns back to his laptop.

He’s sure the other man had said something. Maybe he had just imagined it.

Yifan shakes his head, concentrating on the tasks at hand. He has 11 hours on this plane ride, and that should be more than enough time to finish what he needs to do.

“Hi Panda Bears!”

Yifan whips his head to his seat partner, who’s smiling impossibly widely at his phone, extended by a selfie stick. His voice’s freakishly high, and it grates Yifan’s ears.

“We’re almost taking off! I’m going to miss all of you Seoul fans, it was so great meeting you! I hope you all are having the bestest of times, and I’ll keep you all updated hourly! Love Panda! Bye bye!” He waves at the phone, blowing a kiss to it and then turns it off.

“Excuse me?”

“Yes?”

Yifan simply raises his eyebrows, making a vague gesture, as if to prove how inappropriate it is for him to be taking videos and talking on his phone when Yifan is clearly trying to work.

“Shouldn’t your laptop be off and your table put in the upright position?” The man asks, a small smirk dancing on his lips. He doesn’t wait for a response, and turns back to his phone, inspecting his reflection on the screen.

“You can’t be serious.” Yifan scoffs, his eyes narrow. The other man glances at him, the smirk still plastered on his face. The two lock eyes, and immediately Yifan knows he can’t lose. This always happens. In the face of Yifan’s power and superiority, people either immediately look away, or engage in a hopeless attempt to challenge authority with straight eye contact. Either way, the person meeting Yifan’s glare will look away in the end. They all do.

“Your laptop just crashed.” The man says.

Yifan quickly breaks contact, glancing at his laptop, only to find it working fine. He widens his eyes in surprise.

No way…

Yifan turns back to the other man only to find a smug expression staring back at him.

“Looks like I win.” The man says, winking at Yifan. Said man freezes. What just happened? This man, who just a minute ago was a squealing irritating vlogger suddenly transformed into a confident and smooth talker. And he lost. The battle of eye contact he always won. He lost.

Yifan looks away, focusing on his laptop, although the screen is a blur. All he can think of is the man beside him: his smirk, his wink, and his ing keychain.

----

Baekhyun never thought he would be sitting on an airplane grinding his crotch against the arm rest of his chair. But here he is, doing exactly that. It isn’t enough to get rid of his raging , but it does satisfy him enough to the point that he’s able to act somewhat naturally when his seat partner sits beside him.

“Byun Baekhyun.” He introduces himself, eager to get to know the other man.

“Park Chanyeol.”

His deep voice sends shivers down Baekhyun’s spine, and he isn’t sure whether it’s because he likes it or because he’s incredibly , but Baekhyun wants to hear that voice for the rest of his life. Probably the latter.

They shake hands, Baekhyun holding on a bit longer than necessary, but Chanyeol doesn’t seem to mind. Chanyeol pulls out his phone, checking his text messages, and Baekhyun doesn’t miss this opportunity to get a good look at the man.

Black hair neatly swept to the side, and patted down, making his already large ears seem even bigger and monkey-like. Maybe in any other situation Baekhyun would have found the ears ridiculous, but now all he can think about is how they would feel if he bit them.

Baekhyun leans back in his chair, his mind already whirling with possibilities. He has 11 hours, which in itself is already a challenge, especially considering where they are.

“Do you mind if I lift up this armrest? It just digs into my side.” Baekhyun asks, gesturing to the armrest separating him and Chanyeol. Said man doesn’t even lift his gaze from the phone. He grunts in response, which Baekhyun takes as a yes.

The armrest goes up and Baekhyun smiles. He yawns, stretching his arms and legs out, subtly brushing his shoulder against the other man. No response from Chanyeol, who is still entirely captured by his phone. Baekhyun's smile quickly switches to a frown, and he glances in disappointment at Chanyeol. How oblivious is this guy?

“So, what brings you to L.A? Are you visiting family?”

“Something like that.” Chanyeol answers, his eyes still glued to his phone.

“Cool…” Baekhyun awkwardly responds, turning away to look out the window, his face burning. What’s going on? Is his game off? It has been a while since he put the moves on anyone. Still, he can’t give up. This is for his , and there’s no way he’ll be able to sit through an 11 hour flight without ever dealing with it. Baekhyun purses his lips in determination. He has one trick left up his sleeve, a move with a 100% success rate. Although that’s because he only ever used it on one man. Who was slightly intoxicated. And also his boyfriend at the time.