Rock-Paper-Scissors

Oh, he’s home, Chanyeol concludes as he takes in the image of the living room, black leather jacket, Balmain sunglasses and half emptied bottle of coke scattered like post-its across it. He places his phone on the counter beside the designer shades, sweeps his long fingers over the pelt and smiles. Good taste, uri maknae, you’ve always had it – lucky you can afford it now. His smile at once widens and deepens at the memory of their trainee days: the pair of them walking home together on their last legs and arguing on who would pay for the ramen, Sehun’s exultant smirk whenever he’d dodge the fee by winning at rock-paper-scissors and his grateful expression as the steaming soup would somewhat replenish the depleted stores of his energy. You’re right, Sehunnie, we were happier then.

He crosses the narrow corridor and peers into the room Sehun shares with their leader, shakes his head and wrings his eyes in disbelief at the scale of the chaos contained in so small a space. I don’t know how you do it, Maknae; I couldn’t room with that preppy pig for an hour, let alone four years. “Oh Sehun!” he calls. No reply. Strange…he wouldn’t have left without his coat and glasses. Chanyeol clears his throat and cries a second time: “Yah, Oh Sehun, you home?!” The hissing of the bathroom-door located directly across from the cluttered room as it swings abruptly open startles Chanyeol half-senseless. Bastard, you always do that! He takes a deep breath to steady himself.

“Hold your horses, will you? I’m here…Hyung.”

Chanyeol turns to find Sehun standing a mere foot away from him, his lower body wrapped in a large white towel, his leanly muscular torso bare and dripping, his dark hair half-drenched and clinging to his face in tousled wisps and strands, his well-formed eyebrows arched in cunning and his mouth, made ruddier and fleshier by the heat of the shower, a cool cattish grin. Laboriously, despite himself, Chanyeol averts his gaze. “What took you so long to answer?” he grumbles, coughing to conceal the nervous cracking of his voice.

Sehun runs his fingers through his wet hair, brushing it back from his face. This seemingly innocent action brusquely recapture’s the elder’s stare. With as much inconspicuousness as he owns, Chanyeol re-scans the image of the boy two years his junior in age, two centimetres his inferior in stature. As he studies him, the lyrics to their song, Machine, flood his mind… Seems like (s)he wouldn't even bleed a single drop if (s)he was pricked, a perfect beauty, dreamlike golden proportions…fresh silky hair…marble-skin…firm red lips…(s)he puts on a mysterious cold smile…a beautiful god(ess) as sharp as a knife, you’re a machine… And you used to be so low-resolution as well, when did you get so flipping HD?!

He was a wisp of a thing when they first met – pretty features, full of promise, but as short and slight as a sprout. The doctor assured them he would steadily develop, yet sixteen-year-old Chanyeol could not have imagined him developing quite this much, in neither proportions nor potency. Sehunnie…Oh Sehun: once a draft, now a whirlwind. “Solo practice, is it?” he flashes a vulgar grin.

Sehun takes half a step toward him, the knot of his towel lightly grazing the buckle of Chanyeol’s belt. “Why? he asks with a slick voice and a still slicker smile. “Feel like giving me a hand?”

Under the silk of his brand-name chemise, Chanyeol’s skin bristles at the younger man’s speech, his stare that’s charged with intent he camouflages with comedy. “Not today,” Chanyeol returns, his feathers unruffled as far as the eye can see, and likewise coolly makes his retreat. “Alright, get dressed. I’ve something I want to show you.”

Sehun salutes theatrically, “Ne, Hyung,” then makes for his room, shaking his head and chuckling nasally as he goes.

Still a brat, just a big one, Chanyeol reflects at the younger’s svelte figure as it saunters out the hallway. He takes off his pullover, hangs it on the chair beside Sehun’s and climbs up the stairs to their dorm’s studio.  This four by four, complete with drum-set, keyboards, guitar, recording and mixing equipment is Park Chanyeol’s domain. Here and here alone he is his own master – the words his sings, the chords he plays, the noise and silences all his, his subjects. He greets them with a warm caress.

“Hyung?” Sehun calls from without the room and lightly taps the door. Of all the rooms in the house, this is the only one he never enters without first knocking, without Chanyeol’s explicit invitation.

The elder’s lips curl up in reappraisal. Maybe not that big a brat. “Come in.”

Sehun swings open the door and capers into the studio, in a mechanical monotone singing: “Warning, warning, warning, warning, warning ,warning, warning! Modeun geol geolgo neul deurikin na. Ijen dorikil sudo eopsda. Igeon bun–“

“Yeah, don’t sing,” Chanyeol interrupts, cringing dramatically at the younger’s dissonant delivery.

“Wae, wae?!” Sehun demands, hilariously feigning indignation. “Lee Soo Man-CEO already told me they’ll be using me as main vocalist for our next comeback.” A brief intermission and both men burst out in chortles at the utter absurdity of the prospect.  

At last Chanyeol holds his hand to his heart and with all the solemnity of a groom at the altar vows: “Well, you’ll always be my main, no matter what anyone else thinks or says.”

“Fellowship of the Towers,” Sehun closes, referencing their Aeries’ moniker for the pair as the two bump fists, then shake hands. “You wanted to show me something,” Sehun reminds the elder.

“Mm, have a seat; I’ll be right there.”

Sehun follows the directive, but rather than occupy the small office couch or one of the studio’s chairs, he hunkers down on the heated wooden floor, then sprawls atop it. Chanyeol follows suit as he lays down beside him, mobile and headphones in hand. Instinctively Sehun inches closer to him so that the dark crowns of their heads lightly kiss, closes his eyes and sighs deeply. Chanyeol inserts one bud in the younger’s ear, the other in his and presses play. The atmospheric strain that fills their ears is like an elegy to their shared past – those nights of rock-paper-scissors and steaming cups of ramen. Chanyeol’s lips spring into a smile at the memories, yet his eyes glaze over. He glances at Sehun and in the younger man’s expression finds a mirror-image of himself.

“It’s good,” Sehun appraises with an air of introspection. “I like it.”

“It is, isn’t it?”  

“Mm. Sad but hopeful. Reminds me of that night we spent at Han River a few days before our debut. We were so hungry then, so excited…and scared half to death. Remember what you told me? ‘This is the beginning – the beginning of the end. The minute we’re born we’ve already started dying, but before we’ve finished dying, let’s make sure we live.’” Sehun gives a meaningful smile, though the truer nature of it eludes the elder. All he knows is that in all the world there is none other can produce an expression of equal effectiveness.

“I didn’t think you’d remember,” Chanyeol says at length, his wonderment earnest.

The smile on the younger man’s lips grows in significance. “I remember everything – everything you’ve ever said to me, everything you’ve ever done for me…and everything you haven’t.”

This time it’s the elder who ensnares the younger’s gaze and holds it captive in his own a long instant before he utters, “Ask and ye shall receive.”

Sehun’s slitted eyes widen at the invitation, one on whose reception he’d all but given up hope. Just like that? Not even a token round of rock-paper-scissors? They stare each other down a good thirty seconds at the end of which Sehun unscrews his brow and playfully says, “Cup ramen?”

Chanyeol’s rarely-worn mask of solemnity crumbles into tolerant amusement. Chuckling, he leaps up from the floor and extends Sehun a hoisting hand. The younger willingly accepts. But as he rises, Sehun’s foot suddenly slips and the Towers come crashing down like a house of cards, Chanyeol landing atop his dongsaeng. They burst into self-conscious laughter that shortly fades into a still more uncomfortable silence.

Low-resolution…that’s a lie – you’ve always been high-definition, Oh Sehun, sharp as a knife…a beautiful machine. Gently he caresses Sehun’s face, combs his fingers through his black silken hair. “You’ve shot up well, little seedling,” he says with his famous soft base.

Sehun draws his visage up to Chanyeol’s so that their foreheads kiss. “Well enough to reach you if I stretch my neck up a bit,” he murmurs and puts his puckered mouth to the elder’s likewise pouty lips, first shallowly, then thoroughly.

The sensation is oddly familiar, even with this being their first kiss. Sehun’s body beneath Chanyeol’s is firm, his shoulders wider than his hyung’s, his muscles stronger and better-defined. Yet, somehow, as he enfolds him in his arms, it’s as if Sehun were that fragile fourteen-year-old boy again; the one who seemed so insubstantial, a sudden gust might carry him away. 

“Didn’t think you were the gentle type,” Sehun half rebukes, half commends.

“I’m not,” Chanyeol rebuffs, then pensively concedes, “but you make me.”

“Is this a confession?” Sehun pursues, his face a heady mixture of slyness, uncertainty and anticipation.

It’s all Chanyeol can do to keep his tone level as he prompts: “Do you want it to be?”

“Mm…” the younger finally admits, the colour rising rapidly in his cheeks. 

Tenderly Chanyeol kisses their blush to further rosiness, puts his lips to Sehun's ear and whispers: "Ask me, then. Ask and ye shall receive."

Machine English translation/Overdose Romanised lyrics credit: http://exok-trans.tumblr.com/ & http://popgasa.com/