Return to Sender 

 

 

“Even if I seem strong, even if I’m smiling, I spend a lot of time alone,” Byun Baekhyun’s poignant tenor echoes through the sparsely lighted studio in time with the melancholy melody of the tune. The ivories curtsy in compliance as metrically he sweeps pale tapered fingers athwart the keyboard. His eyes are shut, his heart wide open. Of EXO’s famous ballads, none affects him as does My Answer. The others are make-believe, an exercise in acting, but this he feels, every note and line. They are the summation of his story – a story that began four years earlier, when a nineteen year old Byun Baekhyun, then newly signed to SM and in the first week of his training, chanced upon the minuscule music-room wherein his future group-mate, Zhang Yixing, was at that time quietly composing a song that none but he would ever hear. Yixing’s controlled intensity, the artless eloquence with which he played, the hidden pathos in his music magnetised Baekhyun, reducing him to speechlessness – a hefty feat, given the latter’s garrulousness. 

It was a case of substance beautifying surface. Twenty-year-old Zhang Yixing was not in essence what Byun Baekhyun would have considered pretty, though he was handsome in his way: a nice athletic build, well-proportioned, if somewhat lacking in stature; a cleanly cut jaw, distinctly masculine; a slightly aquiline nose – a fair compliment to his features; plump bowlike lips, pinker than they had any business being; high-boned dimpled cheeks, discernible at a distance; and deep brown eyes, at once as tender as an infant’s and as wise as an elder’s. He wore a dark grey oversized beanie – his thinking cap, he’d later tell Baekhyun – a white T and chafed jeans. Everything about him, from face to sneakered feet disclosed his foreignness, most of all the air of earnestness that haloed him. Baekhyun had never seen its like before…or since. 

Theirs was a bumpy beginning. While his outgoing character and glib tongue easily endeared Baekhyun on the other trainees, Yixing proved a more elusive mark for the hitting.  Beyond the practice room the older boy was no less genial than his junior – a stranger in a strange land, the strenuousness of his position would have hardly permitted it – but within it he was at all times all business. If he saw Baekhyun, he saw a banterer, a kid who’d had it easy from the moment he opened his mouth to announce his entering the world to the moment he opened it  for a chance to enter S.Korea’s largest entertainment enterprise. Patience, attentiveness, diligence and a bit of daring, it took this much for Baekhyun to win the elder over and win him over he did. By the time EXO debuted, they had become bosom buddies. But beneath the still surface of their friendship, the substance seethed.  

“Even if it seems I don’t have many worries, I have a lot I want to say,” he sings, his mind a sequence of all the times over the years he’d resolved to speak to the elder, reveal to him his heart, and all the times that resolution crumbled under the weight of his fear of Yixing’s response.  A lover at the cost of a brother – a heavy price to pay for so precarious a pleasure, so uncertain a contract. Once Baekhyun had confessed, had Yixing refused him, what would have become of them? And what of the other members, who consciously or otherwise, are guarantors to one another in this fragile fraternity of theirs? Should they have been made to pay the forfeit for a deal they never sought to strike? Baekhyun’s fingers falter at the thought. He hangs his head over the resting keys and sighs. My own creditor and my own guarantor, that’s the only way I know of doing business…that’s why I’ll never make it. He sniffs and bitterly smiles. 

“I was so drawn to you that first moment,” a sweet, all but ethereal voice abruptly fills the room where an earthly one ought to ring, causing Baekhyun to spin round snappishly in his seat. A dark grey beanie, white T and distressed jeans, a bright dimpled smile and eyes whose tenderness cuts Baekhyun to the quick. 

“Hyung! When did you get back?”

Yixing throws his backpack on the floor, removes the hat and ably musses his coal-coloured crop of hair. “Just now. I wanted to surprise you, so I asked the managers not to say anything. I see it worked,” he grins contentedly, radiant despite sleep-deprivation. 

He’s gotten better-looking, Baekhyun reflects as he scans the older man, at once resentful and admiring. Yixing used to be one of the less visible members of the group, in spite of his pivotal position as main dancer and lead vocalist of his sub-unit. But the departure of his fellows and his dogged efforts at self-improvement ultimately led to his stocks’ spiking. They all want a piece of you now, don’t they, Hyung? But I hate sharing.

Yixing makes for the piano and Baekhyun. “Practicing for Japan, are we? You’ve become very diligent, Baekhyun-ssi.” He pats his junior’s shoulder encouragingly. Rather than tensing at the touch, Baekhyun’s body relaxes wondrously. As far back as he can recall, Yixing’s presence, both physical and spiritual, has always had a strangely curative effect on the younger man’s being. 

“Well, you won’t be there to alternate with me, so…” Both men sigh in chorus. “I’m not chiding you, Hyung; I know it’s not your fault.”

Yixing again squeezes Baekhyun’s shoulder, this time in gratitude rather than reassurance, then sits himself on the bench beside him. “Play the whole thing, will you? It suits your voice better than the others’ – it’ll be interesting to hear.”

Baekhyun’s heart hastens at the prospect of singing his secrets to their originator, of sounding his truths without asserting them, but the sympathetic anticipation in the elder’s eyes steels him. He stretches his fine fingers, curves them over the keys, breathes in keenly and begins:

“Even if I seem strong, even if I’m smiling, I spend a lot of time alone

Even if it seems I don’t have many worries, I have a lot I want to say

I was so drawn to you that first moment,

So I said it all without really thinking things through

 

The answer is you, my answer is you

I tried showing you all of me

You are my everything, I was so sure of that

 

I should have been more careful, should have held back so I wouldn’t be hurt

This is the first time I’ve felt like this,

Like I might just stop breathing

 

All that’s left in my head are thoughts of you

Your face, the sound of your laughter 

 

The answer is you, my answer is you

I tried showing you all of me

You are my everything, I was so sure of that

 

I can’t even say that I waited for you,

I write it out and then erase it

I spend all of my days wondering how you spend yours

 

I’ll wait for you, you, you

Open your heart to me, you

I can’t help how I feel

You are my everything

You’ll always be, my love

Oh I’m nothing

Don’t leave me

Please just let me stay by your side

No matter how many times I think it over

You’re the answer for me..."

He proceeds to the outro without completing the lyrics, hoping against hope the elder might do it for him. His stare never strays from the instrument in whose reflective surface is caught the image of Yixing, his face a mask of pathos, his body lax with fatigue. At least I have this voice to move you with, Baekhyun half grieves, half triumphs internally. He strikes the final chord and rests his fingers softly on the keys. Well, I’ve said it now, said it all. Hyung…did you hear me? 

“You’re so extravagant while playing, the way you sway and sweep across the keyboard like a madman – like Mozart ,” Yixing critiques with a chuckle, his cheeks dimpling indulgently. 

Guess not, Baekhyun concludes, at once downhearted and relieved. “Do you hate it?” he poses conversationally. 

With equal coolness, Yixing replies: “No, it’s good – makes you look passionate.” His smile turns wry. “Your Aeries will surely shriek.” 

Emboldened by this last, Baekhyun resolves to test the waters, as playfully he says: “Oh-oh, if you keep the compliments coming, I’ll start thinking you’re secretly in-love with me.”

"Sure. Why not?" Yixing laughs liltingly, his cheeks a shade pinker than their usual peach. 

He’s only playing, Baekhyun knows, yet this carefree confirmation from his hyung all but halts his heart. “When are you going back to China?” he asks so as to remind himself of the transience of the time allotted them, too precious a resource these days to waste on pipedreams and the like. 

“Tomorrow. But I’ve a shoot today and it’ll be straight to the airport from there. They’ll come for me in about an hour," Yixing replies. Then, answering Baekhyun's unasked question, adds: "I know it’s crazy, coming all this way for just an hour, but I wanted to see you while I was here.” 

Murmuring, Baekhyun repeats, "An hour," and with a wistful smile, concludes, "kkaebsong."

Yixing gives no response. The intermission lasts six seconds, each of them an eternity by Byun Baekhyun’s count. “Baekhyun-ah,” he says at length, his voice an octave lower than usual, “look over here, mm?” 

Hesitantly Baekhyun turns toward him, yet his gaze remains averted. Only when Yixing’s lips close softly on his cheek, so near his mouth their breath intermingles, do the younger’s eyes re-seek those of his hyung. Yixing smiles at him as blithely as if two men kissing one another were a matter of course in their cultures. That damned guilelessness of yours! Baekhyun exclaims internally, as ever, both exasperated and enthralled by the same. Yixing-ge, are you stupid…or just blind?

Timing is everything, this was the first lesson taught to Baekhyun upon entering the training program at SM. You’ll hit the mark or miss it depending on what? The least unordered movement, an ill-timed intake of air, a momentary submission to the myriad distractions that surround you as you stand on that stage, singing and dancing for dear life – an instant’s abstraction, and your weeks, your months, your years of preparation will have all been for naught. Timing…hit the mark! Baekhyun leans forward and presses his mouth to Yixing's. The lips that meet his are neither wanton nor impervious, they neither give nor withhold, the softness of the surface is balanced by the firmness of the substance - the elder's resolution. Steadily Baekhyun unlocks his eyes to find his "brother" duly strung between acceptance and denial.

“We should stop now, shouldn’t we?” Yixing says, his tone more rueful than resolved. 

“Of course we should,” Baekhyun concedes and quietly withdraws, incredulous at his own composure. Casually he picks up the conversation where the elder let it slip: “So, when are you coming back?” 

“I don’t know…three-four weeks,” Yixing replies, stretching back in his seat and wincing at the pain in his waist that never relents. 

Unconsciously Baekhyun winces with him. “That long, huh?”

“Oh, you won’t miss me,” Yixing returns with uncharacteristic bite. “Fukuoka, Tokyo, Osaka – you’ll be busy enough.”

Fishing, are we? Though you’ll only set me back to sea once you’ve caught me, gentle soul that you are. “I miss you when you’re here,” Baekhyun admits unreservedly, now determined to brave the waters or drown in the attempt, “I think it safe to say I’ll miss you while you’re gone…Hyung.”

Yixing’s expression tautens briefly, though whether at Baekhyun’s admission or at the ceaseless aching in his back the latter cannot quite decide. “You’re too good at ments, always were,” the elder says, his smile, which to that moment had seemed so genuine, now marred with slight affectedness.

Resentment, is it? Well, I suppose I’ve earned it this time. “NoisyHyun, that’s me. Still hate it?”

For once, it’s Yixing who looks away as he replies: “Nah, we can’t hate the things we love.”

Baekhyun’s mouth comes undone. What did he say? “Yixing-ge –“

 “Wah, that’s the first time you’ve ever called me that!” Yixing exclaims, his expression promptly purifying.

No, it’s not. Just the first time you’ve heard it. 'Big brother Yixing'…is that your answer? Alright then. “Yixing-ge, I’ll try to be saner on stage…while I play, I mean.”

Yixing shakes his head, his face the essence of earnestness, substance so bright it makes brilliant the surface. “No. Run as mad as you can – madder than Mozart.”

 “Why?”

Wordlessly, evenly, the elder studies him a long second, his stare a caress – warm and soft. “Because that’s when you’re most beautiful, Byun Baekhyun.”

You’re cruel beneath that kindness, aren’t you, Yixing-ge? Baekhyun bites back a cry.

Abruptly Yixing’s phone rings. He picks up the device and sighs aloud at the flickering screen. “Damn, they're early! I only asked for an hour…” He looks at Baekhyun, grimaces theatrically, then shrugs his shoulders with all the endearing helplessness of a child. “Good luck in Japan – I’ll be keeping watch, no matter where I am.” He picks his backpack off the floor and slips it on. “Don’t tell the others I was here, OK? They wouldn’t like it that I came and went without so much as greeting them.”

The two men make toward the door, one with ready feet, the other reluctant.

“Baekhyun-ah –“

“Hyung?”

“Madder than Mozart, alright?”

Too cruel…you really are. Baekhyun winces inwardly, but outwardly smiles. “Alright.”

Yixing walks out the dorm and into one of SM’s fleet of black mini-vans. “Madder than Mozart,” he cries from behind the tinted window, and just like that he’s gone.

Listlessly Baekhyun returns to the dorm, the studio and his piano. He the keys with tender fingers, but never presses them. His eyes are open, his heart now tightly shut. Four years and this is how it ends?

At that instant his hand-phone buzzes. Reluctantly he flicks it open. His breath catches. His vision blurs. Briny wetness bites his eyes, overflows onto his cheeks, rolls down his trembling chin and dots the screen. On it nine words are written, two of them in English…

To: Byun Baekhyun

Message: It’s you.

Sender: Zhang Yixing

 

 

 

 

 

*My Answer English Translation credit: itshysterie (HITTsubs)