Chapter 23: Refrain

The walls of the study gleamed with accomplishment, decorated with one badge of merit after another. After hastily pulling on his pants and shirt, Chanyeol came to stand before the wall of plaques for a closer look. His lips moved as he read each one under his breath: Byun Baekhyun. Best Vocal Talent. First Place. Citywide. Best in Province. Countrywide. Bachelor of Music, Vocal Performance. Master of Arts, Music Business. He lifted a hand and traced the edge of one frame then another. He pressed the thin dust between forefinger and thumb. There was so much Baekhyun had done - so very much burned within that artful, immaculate body and restless mind. Byun Baekhyun, silenced songbird. Chanyeol wondered for a moment after the sound of the voice hidden behind thin lips, the shape of the thoughts that blossomed behind bright eyes. Glassy frames yielded no insight and so he turned away from them and faced the room.

A sturdy, fine piano stole the spotlight in the study, dominating the room with poise and grandeur. The office was too tightly packed for such a centerpiece, yet there it was housed and there only it shone. The instrument was not unlike the songbooks crowded into the narrow bookshelf, nor the wall teeming with achievement - nor their owner, Chanyeol supposed. Over the lacquered top of the piano Chanyeol smoothed a quiet hand before he seated himself upon its small wooden bench. He peered under the keyboard cover but closed it carefully and quickly when he heard the front door open and a woman's voice break the silence - an upset woman's voice marked with the tremble of repressed unhappiness. JaeHee, thought Chanyeol. JaeHee-ya. Baekhyun. JaeHee.

You're never around! I never see you....things will be different once we're married...I don't know.

Chanyeol froze upon the piano bench and a sudden silence settled over him. He held his breath and heard distantly a barrage of angry words and accusations. It was invasive, this eavesdropping, it struck him as a violation. Yet he could no more cover his ears and tune them out than a passerby could resist the horror of a trainwreck. Destruction appealed at a deep and base level to all.

Jaehee! Give me a minute to think!

Baekhyun's voice rose above the girl's, edged in the ill-contained hysteria he was prone to when he grew nervous. Demanding, bossy, and impatient - these were the last cornerstones of Baekhyun's fortress when his defenses were battered. Chanyeol drew his legs up onto the piano bench and crossed them, tucking his ankles under his knees. His hands settled quietly atop the keyboard cover and his fingertips drummed silently across it in mimicry of a song.

Why?! Why do you need time to come up with an answer? I'm your fiancée, shouldn't you know where we stand?!

Wry, remorseful laughter welled in Chanyeol's gut but died long before it bubbled to the surface. A heaviness settled in his chest as his fingers danced along the smooth splinterless wood, wrists crossing in silent, grand arpeggios.

You're always busy, Baekhyun! If I hadn't said I was coming over now, would you have invited me? Would you have told me if you knew you'd have time?

I am busy and I don't always know when I'll have time and...some time for myself!...What more do you want?

The song crescendoed and ceased inside Chanyeol's head. He felt vaguely disconcerted, as if by listening he was somehow stealing something not meant to be his. Yet he wondered when, and if, Baekhyun ever planned to tell him. Then he remembered with clarity the hollow hunger in the businessman's eyes the first time they'd met - and every time thereafter. It had not been theft. What was given willingly could not be stolen - after all, had it not been Baekhyun who had asked Chanyeol to hold fast to him? He'd expressed this desire clearly, after his initial bout of trepidation. Want was want, whether or not it transformed from a black hole of emptiness into a voluntary kindling lust. That reluctance, Chanyeol now began to understand. There had been more to Baekhyun's hesitation than inexperience. A barb of guilt pierced just below Chanyeol's heart as he recalled the time Baekhyun had come to him with every intention to break off their tryst in its nascency. Chanyeol now tasted the guilt in the tears Baekhyun had shed that night, as if they crowded tightly at the back of his own throat.

There was no escaping the wreckage now. Chanyeol leaned his elbows on the piano cover and held his head in his hands, knitting his fingertips behind his head. He closed his eyes. The voices in the other room changed, stealthily, into those which echoed in his own memory. One argument overlaid another. Was it not the same fight, the same problem, simply a different year, with different people? It was the same song made new by a different voice. His fingers curled into his hair and there they stayed.

I don't even need to speak, you do it for me!

I keep waiting for you to speak, Baekhyun! But you never say anything! I never know what's going on in that head of yours! I feel like everyone else knows something I don't know!

There's something you aren't telling me, I can feel it!....I'm not as stupid as I look, Byun Baekhyun!

...For the hundredth time, what the hell are you talking about?

Chanyeol's phone buzzed in his pocket and his heart leapt into his throat. Belatedly he realized it hadn't rung aloud and blown his cover. Sighing with relief, he pulled the device from his pocket. A lone message stared up at him from the screen.

From: Kai
Yeol. where are you. we practicing today?

Chanyeol paused before tapping out a reply.

Tied up right now. sorry, maybe later.

The response came immediately.

still with that Byun Baekhyun, eh. whatev, big shot. later, then.

Chanyeol chose not to dignify the text with a response, and hastily shoved the phone back in his pocket. Whatever Kai had stuck in his craw, he could gnaw to his heart's content. Chanyeol would not to rise to the jibe.

The voices in the other room had drifted and, for a moment, Chanyeol strained his ears to place them - then caught and chastised himself. They were still there, but muffled, as if they'd moved farther away. He carefully unfolded his legs from the stool and stretched his arms overhead, then draped them over the top of the piano. He peered around the room as he laced and unlaced his fingers. He stopped as soon as he noticed what he was doing - reminded strongly of Baekhyun's fine fingers twisting and wringing with one another when nerves wore him raw. He unclasped his hands and splayed them flat atop the piano and rested his cheek on his arm. After a few moments of perusing the titles in Baekhyun's bookshelf sideways, he felt the first twinges of a crick in his neck. Shaking it out he stood and wandered round to the desk, settling cautiously into the leather executive chair, half expecting it to squeak in protest. He'd just made himself comfortable when a shriek resonated through the apartment.

You lying, cheating-- you--