Kyungsoo woke up oddly warm. He didn't trust hotels so he usually slept with only the sheets, which he knew were washed, so he was usually cold when he slept. Anyway, he'd read a study once when he was little that said you sleep better when you were cold—and he hadn't previously had cause to belive that wasn't true.

He yawned big and wide, the yawn sending his chest fluttering up and down and the man wrapped around him to shift his position a little. This wasn't fever warmth, nor the warmth of a hot practice room, or of a full venue packed full of bodies—well, maybe it was a little like that. Kai's heat was all mixed up with his own, and the comforter on top of them kept all the heat sealed in. 

The room was pitch black, so Kyungsoo wondered why he was so sure it was morning. Last night he'd woken up just in time for dinner and a movie before he fell asleep again, but apparently he hadn't been sleeping in the right bed, because the bed he'd slept in last night—that room hadn't had blackout curtains. 

Kyungsoo sighed and tried to extricate himself from his long-limbed bedmate without waking him. In practice, he failed—Kai's eyes slitted open for a moment before he mumbled something with pouty lips and dove back under the covers, curling up around the space Kyungsoo left behind like his body was subconciously mourning Kyungsoo's departure.

A shirt was next. The room seemed full of the low shuffle Kyungsoo's footsteps made against the carpet and the rustle of fabric he extracted from the wardrobe and the scrape of wood on wood as he opened a drawer—wrong one, socks—and another one—right one, shirts, but too big. Oh well. 

Sufficiently dressed, Kyungsoo slid the door open, wincing as bright light came pouring in through the slit, and squeezed through, hoping the light hadn't bothered Kai. He wondered what Kai saw when his eyes were clsoed, and he heard something. Did the colors appear in his head? Did they dissappear?

Straight from Kai's room he veered into the guest room where his stuff was still piled: just a phone and his thin, moneyless wallet. The phone was dead, but he figured it was worth charging, so he swiped it, automatically trying to turn it on anyway, and finally walked into the living room, rubbing that blissful sleep from his eyes.

"Who the are you?"

Kyungsoo stopped a the high, insistent voice and finally looked up from the floor. Granted, he hadn't stayed over at nearly as many bachelors' houses as Baekhyun believed, but he knew that they usually didn't come with women in them—maybe a mother, or a sister, but he was sure at first glance that this woman was neither. The first word that came to his mind was model. 

She wasn't prim, her long legs propped up on top of the coffee table, her bare arms draped across the back of the couch, her chin high as she regarded him cooly. 

A thousand responses rose in Kyungsoo's mind just as a million ideas fought to be thought of. Play the playboy singer? But that was the wrong persona; he didn't exactly sing about boys. Try to be anonamous? The look in the woman's eye said he wasn't leaving without some sort of explanation. 

He absolutely knew, even from the sound of her voice, that the truth was not an option.

Adrenaline waking him up a little more, he shoved his phone in the pocket of his jeans—cursing the designer for making the pocket so small, and the inefficiency of stage clothes in general. "Do Kyungsoo," he introduced himself, keeping his voice carefully even and quiet, still hoping to leave without Kai waking up. "Kai picked me up after hearing me in the street."

"Kai... picked up Do Kyungsoo... on the street?" she raised an eyebrow. "And... what? Forgot to inform his wife that we were hosting celebrity within our walls?"

Kyungsoo choked his suprised down with effort, his face barely twitching at the word wife. "I'm sure you know what mobs can get like. You're both georgous enough to know, I'm sure."

The woman regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, then slowly extracted her legs from the coffee table and standing up in one swift motion. The way she stood almost reminded Kyungsoo of Kai—almost. She was much more careful about it—there seemed to be a thought behind every action she took.

She gave him a moment to look at her. High black heels, white short shorts, black tank top—she looked young, and her face glowed like her eyes. Kyungsoo wondered whether his wrist or her waist was bigger.

"Flattery. I always fall for flattery. Do Kyungsoo, the singer." she bit her lip, then began to advance towards him one click of a heel at a time. "I love Tender Love. What a song—your pipes—damn. But... now, correct me if I'm wrong... but Kai wanted to you to My Lady. Much ier." 

Kyungsoo's mouth fell a little open and he felt the back of his ears getting hot. If he'd been wearing his shoes by now he would have just bowed and made his escape, but his shoes were through her.

After her words had set in, the woman closed the final few meters and extended a hand to Kyungsoo. He shook it, doing his best to remember how many thousands of hands he'd shaken in his life. He used to play a game with himself: tell the person by their hand. The woman's hand was perfectly manicured, but the manicure was clearly fresh and the cuticles looked stressed, which meant she probably bit her nails and had to have them redone often as a result. Her hand was unnaturally soft—meaning she was the sort of person who was constantly applying hand lotion.

Scary.

"I'm Jinah, lady of the house," she said, her pointy voice massacreing the air like the blades of a dying helicopter. "Do Kyungsoo, as long as you don't mention anything that's gone on here, you can sneak out whenever you want, don't let me keep you—that's what you—hey, baby!" her voice rose to an unbearable shrill as she looked over Kyungsoo's shoulder, her face lighting up. 

Kyungsoo didn't dare turn around. 

"You should have called me." Kai's voice came behind him, tightly controlled, unreadable.

"I did call you, jagi. Like, three times? I'm not about to call more than that, I'm not desparate. This is my house too."

"Did you pay for it?" Kai's voice was definitley not friendly.

"Yes, I paid for it, Jongin. Don't make me rehash why I have the ing right to enter my house."

"You should have told me, Jinah, you're embarrasing me and—"

"And someone who isn't Sehun? Do you know one of the reasons I came back?" She retrieved a magazine from her purse and brushed past Kyungsoo to brandish the magazine at Kai. "They're taking pictures of him with Luhan. You can't be booty calling him if he's publically attatched to someone, no? There's no way to keep him from—from modeling now, or you know what, doing whatever the the little brat wants, because you will only georgous, low-voiced—"

"Jinah would you shut up? Please? Or lower your voice? I have a headache already. Don't you? Don't you get a headache from this, Kyungsoo?" 

Jinah turned to him too, eyes flashing a challenge. Kyungsoo stood between them and kept silent. "He's Kyungsoo? So, that's it, you're over Sehun? I thought they were toys, but I also thought you had a heart, Jongin—"

"Kai," Replied Kai between clenched teeth, his eyes darting nervously between Jinah and Kyungsoo. "And you also have no right to interrogate me about my life, you—"

"I'm your wife!" Jinah shrieked, her bag making an arc in the air as she gestured. Kyungsoo slowly began to back away.

"Right, and you live in Milan, or New York, or wherever you came from. I thought you had a boyfriend," Kai shot back sullenly. 

Kyungsoo took another step towards freedom, his feet silent under the fray of words. 

"I did, but then do you know what I heard? I heard that the Kai had begun showing up at his own art shows and I thought, well isn't this funny, that couldn't possibly be my Jongin— my Jongin can barely set a ing foot out the door without crying like a goddamn baby! But lo and behold, according to Baekhyun—I had to hear it from Baekhyun—"

Kyungsoo took another step. "Jagi," Kai pleaded, his voice dropping desparately, "Please, your voice. Yell at me, but quietly. Please. I just woke up and the air's already disgusting."

"Well, you have Do Kyungsoo for that, don't you? I bet you find his voice beautiful. Kyungsoo!" She whirled to face him, a smirk appearing on her face when she saw how close he'd gotten to the door. "Uh-uh, not so fast, my friend. Kai needs you to clear the air for him because he finds my voice so repulsive." She looked at Kai with an eyebrow raised in challenge. He made a distinctly petulant face at her.

"Is she the mustard yellow and neon green?" Kyungsoo asked in a low voice, sliding his words in underneath the shrill of Jinah.

Kai burst out in suprised laughter and Jinah just stared between them fuming. But Kai's laughter subsided as quickly as it had come and he ran a hand through his hair. "Why don't we all try to be reasonable and you can let me take a shower, Jinah, and we can both let Kyungsoo sneak out like he was intending to." 

Kai made brief contact with Kyungsoo, not long enough for Kyungsoo to decode the expression dancing in his eyes. If it didn't look warm, it didn't look bitter, just... regretful. But the moment was gone so fast that Kyungsoo questioned whether it had really been there. 

"Nah, Kyungsoo will be back, and we will all have to have this conversation. I just got home, Jongin. Why can't we sit down like normal—"

"Why do you keep calling him Jongin?" Kyungsoo asked quietly, Jinah still blocking his way to the door.

"Because that's—"

"It's a nickname," Kai said quickly. Kyungsoo looked at him disbelievingly.

"Aww, that's adorable," Jinah squealed. "Or it would be if this were five years ago and I still cared to find it anything but—" the door to the apartment swung open and the man from the yellow painting walked in in a beaten-up leather jacket and nice black pants. 

"Yo Kai, have you heard anything about Do—" he looked up from his tablet and took in the situation before him. Kyungsoo looked at him with eyes as wide as moons, Jinah glared, and Kai looked between the three helplessly. 

Yixing made a quick decision and without saying another word his heel and beat a hasty retreat. 

"Smart man," murmered Jinah. "Are you ing him too or can I..." 

"No, but he's an old friend, and he is absolutely off limits," Kai growled. "He's shorter than you, anyways."

"Do Kyungsoo, you look taller on TV," Jinah said, ignoring her husband.

"No I don't," Kyungsoo replied. "If you paid attention I'm a good two or three inches shorter than all my backup dancers. But since your song was Tender Love, you don't watch me on stage, you watch the ty fancams so you can reassure yourself that I'm not perfect."

"What, are you saying you are perfect? Do Kyungsoo, are you trying to flatter me again? I'm definitley not perfect, if I were I would have been born with a voice that Jongin can ing stand."

"I don't think we should continue in this vein," Kai said. "Perfection is relative. And now I really have a headache and I'd really just like to go take a shower."

He was looking pale, even though he'd just woken up, and during the five minutes or so that they'd been talking he'd gone from sleepily blissful to fidgety and agitated, his eyes darting back and forth like he didn't like what was in front of them. Kyungsoo remembered that painting in vivid detail now, and he was sure that this was who the painting he had been about. It was actually very sad to him, that the girl he married—for whatever reason—had a voice he didn't like. It wasn't her fault, but it wasn't his, either. He'd snuck in a wikipedia article or too before he'd gone to sleep and been followed by Kai. People with synesthesia, especially the type Kai had—they could get overstimulated by the smallest of things.

So now he was torn. He knew what the gentlemanly thing to do was: stay and talk to Jinah and let Kai cool down and take a shower. But this had also all been a colossal mistake, and Kyungsoo felt worse each minute he was unable to apologize to the fans he'd missed by playing hookie yesterday. Whatever happiness he'd enjoyed because of Kai he could have given to a thousand people yesterday. 

"You're absolutley right, Kai," Kyungsoo said, ignoring the smirk that appeared on Jinah's face when he said Kai's name. "Listen... well, I'm not hard to find, I guess." he edged his way around Jinah, giving her a half-bow of respect. 

He made it to the door before anyone spoke again. "He'll be calling you," Jinah said. "He needs boys to art."

"You're ing sick," came Kai's reply as Kyungsoo pulled the door open.

Jinah's rising voice followed him out into the hallway as he finally pulled the door shut with a heavy sigh. When he looked up after gathering himself Kyungsoo saw the man from the yellow painting sitting on the floor across from the door.

"I remember when I used to do this five nights a week," he said quietly. "She doesn't remember it because he didn't want her to see me, he thought I'd fall in love with her. That was his worst fear. That was the first time I'd ever seen her... I don't see how..." he fell silent, shifting the tablet between his hands. "But what am I saying, you've been traumatized for life. Here, do you need anything? I live right next door." The man rose to his feet. He was barely taller than Kyungsoo, his kind eyes meeting Kyungsoo's full of brightness and energy. The man offered Kyungsoo his hand. "Yixing," he said. "You were probably trying to get to me, but you got Kai instead."

" 's who I wanted anyway," Kyungsoo replied with a half-smile, taking the man's hand. Yixing was barely taller than him, his kind eyes making Kyungsoo feel immediatley calmer. "Look, I don't want to impose or anything, but I don't really want to bother Kai again either" —he was interrupted by Kai's voice thundering a SHUT UP! from within the apartment. Wincing, he continued, his heart in pain, "I don't really carry money with me—I just need to get to a cab, that's all, or even a subway, I guess..."

"Sure, you got it," Replied Yixing immediatley, putting a deft hand on Kyungsoo's shoulder as he fished his wallet out of his pocket, handing Kyungsoo a few bills. "Hey,—" Yixing stopped as Kyungsoo turned back at his words. "I'm a fan," Yixing said sheepishly. "I produce some music—you can't tell Baekhyun or Chanyoel, okay, I just... I don't know, I only know the art world, I don't really know the music world..."

Kyungsoo fidgeted uncomfortably. He was used to timid inquiries like this on a daily baisis, but he'd never actually answered one. If he really felt that someone could use his suggestion, he'd refer them to whatever manager or producer was with him, but alone—alone for miles—he felt small, and ineffective, like an ant walking among elephants. So he stumbled over his answer. "If—if you call... call my, um, my, my record company, actually, they'll ignore you, they'll be ing... well, I'm actually under an awful company, but, um, if you tell them.... haaa." he sighed, trying to think of something Haein would notice as him. "If you tell them Kyungsoo said unto the breach, they should... well, you know how codes and go there... I'll call them up and make sure you get an audience." He finished shakily.

Yixing just looked at him calmly, dimpling in a grateful smile. "Thank you! I promise I'll work hard. I'll—" there was a female shriek from within Kai's apartment and Kyungsoo felt a string in his heat twang an unnatural note. Yixing winced, too. 

"Look, call him if he doesn't call you, will you? I can only help so much, he doesn't want my help with her," Yixing said as Kyungsoo stepped into the elevator.

Kyungsoo bit his lip. His favorite manager, Shanyuan, wasn't looking at him with any anger. None of them were. But the air crackled with something akin to judgement. Shanyuan sighed. "You know we can't delay your scedule to get you any rest," he said, his voice quiet and defeated. "And they're going to give you more the next few days to make up for it."

"Yeah," Replied Kyungsoo quietly. "Where am I sceduled to be?"

"You're in Seoul tomorrow, then Busan, then you're in Japan for a fanmeeting we sceduled a few months back and can't back out of, then you're back here to start shooting that new drama."

"Shows?" 

"Two a day." There was sympathy in Shanyuan's voice, and it was almost worse than if he'd yelled at Kyungsoo. Orders came from on high. Orders came from those heiresses, those chaebols, those website administrators who directed the masses into something resembling order. Shanyuan was the last person who would ever have any sort of power. Kyungsoo looked around the dorm they shared, mourning, all of a sudden, it's bareness. He'd had enough of bare surroundings lately.

He'd grown up in the warmest place—there had been plants everywhere, his mother had loved plants. When he'd started moving around more, he'd tried to bring plants with him, but they kept getting left here or there, some of the managers actively trying to make sure he lost them so they didn't get questions from the press about whether Kyungsoo was trying to make a case for climate change or if he just liked plants. 

He was suprised when he found his mind wandering to Kai's apartment, to plans of bringing him orchids and ferns. He'd be lucky if he didn't answer Kai to any of the questions he got during interviews, with the amount the artist was on his mind. 

That night, he wasn't thinking about music, or movies, like he ususally was. He didn't dream about his life in a fictional universe, like he usually did.

He thought about Kai, and he dreamed about Kai, and the softly glowing tan skin stretching across his cheekbones, and his fluffy bed-hair, and his soft lips, and his intense eyes, and his lithe abs, and tongue...

When he woke up, Shanyuan was out getting his wardrobe for the day, so Kyungsoo jumped when the doorbell rang. Kyungsoo personally knew the amount it took in bribes to even get to the level of his apartment, so his mind flew to saesangs, or chaebol heirsses, or anyone but—

Kai leaned against the doorframe in a soft grey band shirt and jeans, his hair fluffy, his eyes intense. "I've come to cordially invite you to my mother's garden party," he intoned, his voice low chimes that penetrated Kyungsoo.

"Hmm?" Kyungsoo blinked as if blinded. It hadn't even been twenty-four hours, but the reality of the artist still stunned him: his height, the way he stood, moved, watched the world.

"I know, you're suprised I have parents, but where do you think Jinah came from? I'm so, so sorry about that, by the way. My life, the show. Anyway, this is really important, and you can totally decline, I would absolutely understand, I mean you didn't even want to see me ever again, but... I could use some backup... but it might get awkward, so..."

"You tracked me down to invite me to a dinner party?" Kyungsoo asked, trying not to laugh in Kai's very sincere, cute pouty face.

"A family dinner party," Kai corrected, standing up to his full height gracefully. "And no, I also came to let you know that she was right."

"Hm?" Kyungsoo didn't follow.

"I do need boys to art," Kai said with a sultry look, a y smile spreading slowly across his enticing lips. 

Author's note: if you are here for Baekyeol/Chanbaek or Hunhan... mwahahahaha, I'll see you all next chapter. Also, please comment if you think I should make a Hunhan/Xiuhan spinoff of this lovely story :)