"Mouse."
"Mouth."
"Mouse."
"Try to pronounce the 'th' like... Like a VERY lisped 's' sound."
"Mouss."
Kyungsoo tried to smile encouragingly.
"Yeah, sounds close enough."
He rearranged his posture on the couch while Chanyeol scribbled a tiny note on his sheet and continued with the next sentence.
Usually Kyungsoo would groan at an awful use of English but the way Chanyeol tried to say the words was so adorable. He genuinely tried so hard and wasn't even remotely put off by Kyungsoo's criticism. It was a little fascinating how he easily got the long words like 'magical' and 'mystery' but kept stumbling across short and simple expressions like 'I'm'.
Sentence for sentence they went through his script and it was already 9:45PM when they had reached an acceptable level of his pronunciation.
The glass of orange juice had been joined by the whole bottle and he had even gotten a few cookies to offer Kyungsoo. Not that he'd take the offer easily. After all, cookies tended to crumble and be overall messy.
"Alright! I think I got it now..." Chanyeol thoughtfully said while taking a few last notes.
"Thanks, man. I've been meaning to sing this song for a subscriber special but I've been kinda hesitant to do it without any advise. Cause, you heard it... my English ."
"No it doesn't!" Kyungsoo quickly cut in with a wave of his hands but at Chanyeol's disbelieving look, he relented.
"Maybe a tiny bit." he admitted.
The redhead only laughed at this.
"Well, I just gotta keep practicing!" he lightly said and stretched his limbs, sending his bones to crack in protest.
"Where do you take all your optimism from?" Kyungsoo asked before he could help it.
For a second Chanyeol blinked at him and it seemed as if he had hit a sensitive topic. Then it was all gone and he shrugged with the happy smile in place.
"Well, the next day comes whether you smile or not, right? Better make the most of it!"
"That's... Kinda true..." he mumbled and a quiet yelp escaped him the other's hand patted his shoulder almost painfully in its' over-enthusiasm.
"You should try to relax a little once in a while!"
"I do relax!"
Just not when you're around.
To change the topic, he gestured at the computer in the corner of the room.
"So, uh... you're always recording in here? In this room? And at this computer?"
Kyungsoo didn't hold back on voicing his disbelief. After all, he had downloaded heard all a few of his songs. And the sound quality never seemed too bad.
"Ah... Yeah. I know the computer looks like the first one ever made, but the microphone is pretty new. Once in a while I also buy some secondhand parts. Just the shell and the monitor are really damn old." he reassured him in a conversational tone, vaguely gesturing across the room.
"Belonged to my mother, like most of the stuff here."
"What, you did not buy some huge wall unit made off solid dark wood?", he asked in mock-wonder, "But seriously now, all of this is hers? She didn't take anything? You didn't ever, I don't know... Throw anything out?"
Chanyeol shrugged again, a little disheartened this time.
"I don't know... Should I maybe? I feel like that would break Sohee's heart. I think she's still waiting for our mother to return."
Kyungsoo felt like he was threading on thin ice, his eyes flickering over to where Sohee had disappeared to and lowering his voice a bit.
"And... she won't?"
Again, the taller one sighed and let his head rest on the back of the couch, blowing a strand of hair out of his eyes.
"No idea, really. Seems more unlikely with every passing day if you ask me. You've seen that we made it into our home already with all the pictures, games and stuff. When our mother left we've been sharing a room but now Sohee sleeps in mother's old bedroom on her king-sized bed. There are a few boxes of toys but I feel like she actually likes being surrounded by the ridiculous amount of clothes, shoes and whatnot.
I already thought about moving into a smaller apartment and everything, but... I don't wanna make Sohee leave on a bitter note like this. Maybe... I'm just selfish."
"How does this link to being selfish?" Kyungsoo carefully asked and Chanyeol turned his head to the side, giving him an almost pained look.
"Well... I don't want to be the bad guy ripping her out of this."
Kyungsoo stared.
"Are you crazy? I don't think you could EVER be 'the bad guy' in her book. Did you see the way she's looking at you? I'm bad with kids but that's some pure adoration right there. She loves you."
"You think so?" he asked but the tug at his lips betrayed his happiness.
"Is this apartment really that expensive?"
It wasn't that small, but it wasn't exactly huge either and the district also wasn't exceptionally expensive.
"Kinda. It's alright. But there's electricity, heating, school supplies, food... You know how it is. Maybe we'll move one day."
It was a minuscule change in his voice and Kyungsoo was unable to interpret it.
"You don't want to?"
Chanyeol pondered this thoroughly, tilting his head from side to side before coming to a decision.
"Actually I kinda like it here, I guess. For me it's got personal value, this apartment. It's no longer the home of us three, but the home of Sohee and me. This probably makes no sense but if I see all the remnants and remember all that has happened so far... It feels like I'm reminded that we both made it. It's stupid right?", he ended with a self-depreciating laugh, "I don't even know what I'm saying."
"No it's not!" Kyungsoo exclaimed once more, feeling the deja-vu, "I mean, really. It's not. You know... You don't have to move if you're content with the way things are right now."
This earned him a surprised look and he wondered whether this had been the wrong thing to say. But then the taller one averted his gaze and laughed silently.
"You are really something, you know that? The way you say it makes me actually feel like it'd be alright. I'll definitely take it into consideration."
He clapped his hands once and got to his feet.
"Aaand that's enough of the serious talk! I gotta start recording if I wanna make it before I go to work."
"You still have work today?!" Kyungsoo inquired in surprise, fleetingly watching at the clock on the wall. It was already past ten.
"Yeah, I'm on nightshift today. Goes from half past 12 to about 5 in the morning, being weekend and all." he casually said as he strode to the computer to switch it on. It complied with a the loud rattling sound only super-old technology would make(and an Xbox360).
It was then that an idea struck him. Possibly the best one he'd had in weeks.
"Should I maybe stay in case you need further help? With the pronunciation, I mean?" he offered in what hopefully didn't sound too desperate of a voice.
"You would? I mean, it's pretty late and I don't wanna keep you from working..."
"Oh, but I have my laptop with me. I can just work right here. How about that?"
Chanyeol considered it.
"Well... If you want to it's alright I guess? I wouldn't want you to miss sleep because of me."
And I wouldn't want to miss you recording.
He dismissed him with an exaggerated wave of his hand.
"Nah, nonsense. I would have worked the whole night anyway. Doesn't matter where I sit while doing so, right?"

It took almost fifteen minutes until the computer was ready to work with and Kyungsoo wondered whether the parts he had purchased had really been secondhand ones. And not FOURTHhand ones or anything. In the meantime Kyungsoo had settled down with his feet on the couch and sitting up with the back to Chanyeol, the laptop propped up on his lap and photoshop already opened. Time to work on his god-forsaken booklet.
It wasn't that he disliked working at the computer, quite the opposite. It was the usual stress that accompanied it since you could only actually work on booklets and promotional posters close to the deadline when all the details and photos were set.
He really thought he'd be done with it in one (nightly) session but as soon as Chanyeol began to sing a few nonsensical vocals to warm up his voice he knew that he wouldn't get anything done this night. And if he thought he had been enthralled before, then there were no words to describe his feelings when he actually started to sing the song they had prepared for.
At first he tried to focus on his pronunciation and smiled a little at him saying 'mouss' instead of 'mouth'. But before he had reached the refrain, Kyungsoo was completely lost into his voice. Until he abruptly stopped, that is.
"Nah, that's not it." he mumbled and Kyungsoo couldn't help but voice his latest concern.
"Say, is it really alright to record so late? What about your neighbors? Or Sohee?" he asked, looking over his shoulder to watch Chanyeol fiddling with some stabilizing tools on his screen.
"Huh? Oh. Yeah, it's no big deal. No one has ever complained so far. And Sohee sleeps like a log. You'd need a live drum performance to make her twitch in her sleep. Don't worry about it."
Kyungsoo didn't even have the brain capacity to worry about anything as Chanyeol picked up singing. Listening to his songs on Youtube was one thing. And all these stabilizers and whatever tools he was using altered the tone of his voice, mostly to compensate for the bad conditions he was recording in. But still, listening to him live was so... amazing. And even though Chanyeol did obviously not even know a of English he had read the translation well and poured so many feelings into the song it gave him goosebumps.
And Kyungsoo -who understood the lyrics very well- couldn't help but stopping everything he had been doing and basically anything he had been thinking about when Chanyeol got more and more into it.

Cause all of me
Loves all of you
You're my end and my beginning
Even when I lose I'm winning

And it was when he went into the refrain his deep voice rising seamlessly into a soft high note that a realization hit Kyungsoo.
He was in love.
Not simply crazy about him, crushing on him or feeling attracted.
He, Do Kyungsoo, was in love with Park Chanyeol.
Why this realization drove tears to his eyes, he didn't know. Was it to blame on his lack of sleep or the emotional song Chanyeol was singing? He had no idea.
But the feelings were so heavy and overwhelming he felt them in the prickling of his goosebumps to his clogged throat and burning eyes.
I really, really like you.

To sooth the burn he closed his eyes and leaned sideways into the couch, letting the soothing voice of Chanyeol wash over him. He barely had the presence of mind to set an alarm clock to 12 o'clock before drifting off.

Cause I give you all of me...
And you give me all of you...

His phone had only been buzzing for a split-second when Kyungsoo's fingers quickly silenced it. That was just one of his habits. Even before the song he had set as an alarm(which was a song by Jonghyun called 'Fine') could go off, it was already killed. At least he could still listen to the song in daily life without flinching and considering being caught in an inception scenario.
Rubbing his eyes he first noticed the blissful silence. Well, it would have been blissful if he hadn't fallen asleep to much more blissful music. The second thing he noticed was soft breathing and he almost fell off the couch when he turned to his right where Chanyeol was sleeping on the floor, resting his head on the table, buried in the fluffy-looking sleeves of his kinda silly orange pullover. His first thoughts circled around how his long legs hadn't fallen asleep, folded beneath him like that.
But they were quickly crushed by the followed adoration. It wasn't that he was smiling in his sleep like a drama character would. But the expression of a sleeping person was always something to acknowledge. With all his muscles completely relaxed he looked much more serious but also more at peace with everything.
Smiling everyday must be tough, too.
His hair looked a little messy which he found strangely attractive and he tried to not even look at his slightly parted lips too closely. He surely was failing miserably when Chanyeol's phone alarm went off and his head whipped to his laptop with the speed of true guilt.
A low groan escaped Chanyeol and he reached for his phone with one hand, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.
"It can't be twelve already..." he murmured and there Kyungsoo really had to pull himself together so as not to coo at the markings his pullover had left on his cheeks.
"Actually it's already 12:10. Sorry, I think I missed your first alarm."
Because while Kyungsoo would wake up at the faintest vibration of his own phone, basically no other noise in a radius of 30 meter would be able to rip him out of his slumber.
Chanyeol's brown eyes grew wide.
"WHAT? , I'm late!"
He jumped to his feet and righted his hair with one hand while taking long strides through the apartment to get his jacket and name tag. Kyungsoo felt a little overwhelmed at the sudden change from rest into full-blown stress, frantically saving his photoshop data - which took forever since the laptop had went into a snooze mode as well.
"Uhm, I'll hurry packing up my stuff-"
"Ah, right! Don't worry about it, you can sleep over!" Chanyeol called while bustling around in the kitchen.
"W-what?"
The tall boy almost ran into another room to return with a set of blankets he hurriedly threw on the couch before making his way to the doorway and slip into his working shoes.
Kyungsoo padded after him like a lost child.
"No big deal. It's too late anyway, how are you even gonna get home? Just make yourself comfortable, feel free to take whatever edible thing you can find and just go to sleep at some point. I don't wanna see you being still awake when I return!" he all but rushed out in one breath while tying his shoelaces and grabbing his bag and sending him a quick wave.
"Good night!" he exclaimed with a blinding smile and the front door was closed, leaving a completely befuddled Kyungsoo standing in the doorway like an idiot.
What on earth did just happen?
For almost half an hour Kyungsoo stiffly sat on the couch, contemplating on what to do. Should he actually stay? Wasn't that rude? Wouldn't leaving now be more rude?
In the end he decided to stay in order not to make Chanyeol think he'd hate staying at his place.
Damn, I don't even have sleeping wear with me.
But Chanyeol turned out to be more resourceful than one would think as he found both a pair of pajamas and a new toothbrush on the pile of blankets.
The following ten minutes were spent with Kyungsoo awkwardly looking for the bathroom to change and brush his teeth, all the while taking in the surroundings carefully. Obviously without rummaging through any cupboards because he wasn't a creep. He saw different bottles of aftershaves and perfumes carefully arranged in front of the mirror while a great number of women's perfume flasks were occupying a shelf on the wall.
So those all belonged to Chanyeol's mom, he thought while skimming the labels.
Chanel, Cartier, Issey Miyake, Dior... his mother seemed to have quite a lot of money to spend.
So how did she end up abandoning Chanyeol and his little sister like that?
A while later he found himself re-situated on the couch with the blanket covering his legs and laptop ready to continue his work. At least now that Chanyeol was gone he could get some work done. If he went to sleep before Chanyeol returned it would be alright.
After all, the deadline was approaching fast and the booklet had to be printed as well.
One o'clock passed by and Kyungsoo plugged in his earbuds since he'd fall asleep in an instant without music.
Two o'clock passed and he was nearing the finalization of the basic layout.
At around three o'clock he saw movements from the corner of his eye and looked up to see Sohee standing in the doorway, not unlike the first time he had seen her. He paused the music and took out one of his earbuds to throw her a questioning glance. She shuffled her feet as her tiny hands grabbed the door frame.
"Uhm. I just... wanted to get a glass of water. I had a nightmare." she shyly murmured and Kyungsoo replied with a friendly nod.
"Sure. Go ahead."
She quickly pitter-pattered into the kitchen, followed by the sound of running water and before he knew it, she had scurried across the living room and vanished into her room, the glass of water clutched in her fingers.
Kyungsoo was about to switch the music back on when she appeared in the doorway once more shooting him a hesitant glance.
"You're... still here." she stated carefully and he briefly wondered whether she was scared of him so he tried to sound as friendly as he could.
"Yeah. Chanyeol invited me to stay."
She hummed but didn't leave. More shuffling followed.
"It was a really bad nightmare." she hesitantly added, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt.
Kyungsoo blinked.
Oh.
Uhm. What exactly was he supposed to do now?
"Uh... You can't sleep anymore?"
A rapid shake of her head. And Kyungsoo awkwardly bit his lip.
"Uhm. You... want to stay with me? I'm still working though."
He had actually doubted that the girl would want to stay with him, considering that he was basically a stranger but she padded back into the room wearing her blanket like a cloak only seconds later.
Soon she was next to him, huddled together at the other end of the couch, her eyes following his every click. Kyungsoo soon turned the music back on, albeit on a lower volume and with only one earbud plugged in but Sohee didn't say a word. And it didn't even take ten minutes for her to fall asleep to the sound of his fingers flying over the keyboard typing out a concept.
Kyungsoo briefly wondered how often she padded through the dark apartment after having a nightmare with no one being around.

At 5:45 in the morning Chanyeol returned home to find Kyungsoo and Sohee both sleeping on the couch with Kyungsoo still having the laptop placed in his lap and soft music coming from his earbuds. He regarded them with a soft smile before carefully placing the laptop on the low table and tip-toeing into his own room.

Aaand we're back on schedule!

*singing 'cheesy, cheesy' by Kyung*
Ooh, Chansoo is slooowly moving along.
Kyungsoo's alarm-clock-habits are a direct copy of mine to be honest. And yes, I do have Jonghyun's Fine as an alarm tone. I think my mood would be ruined if everyday started as violently as, say, Topp Dogg's 'THE BEAT'.
Also Chanyeol's and Sohee's mother has been drawn from an existing person though I won't bother to elaborate on this.

Listen(and download to re-listen to it for a hundred times) to Chanyeol's full version of "All of me" on his official soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/realpcysc/all-of-me

As always I'd love to hear your thoughts - this story is heading towards the 100 subscriber mark which is beyond awesome! Any proposals for a subscriber special?
Love,
Sugar-and-Salt

P.S.: You think this pullover is ridiculous? Well, I like it! xD