Six in the morning is not a good time for Jongdae. He never understood why they had to leave for their schedule so early, especially when the concert began that night at seven. He reluctantly enters the van anyways, pushing a barely conscious Jongin against the far end of the row and settling on Yixing’s shoulder before passing out again.

He’s rustled awake by Exo’s manager who hands him a cup of coffee when he exists.

“Thank you,” Jongdae murmurs, before sipping the hot drink. He enters the building and sees Sehun already refilling his cup of tea. He greets the staff nearby and makes his way to a somehow wide awake Yixing and burrows his face into the elder’s shoulder.

“Hyung,” Jongdae groans, and is met with hands running through his hair. “How are you so awake this early?” The last part is muffled into fabric and he can feel Yixing chuckle.

“Lots of practice and early schedules in China,” is his only reply.

Jongdae refuses to move and Yixing just lets him stand there until they’re called by the sound director to do mic checks.

Around noon finds Jongdae sprawled on the ground, Jongin resting his head on the elder’s stomach. Kyungsoo’s still humming the melody to “Sing For You” and Jongdae can feel himself slipping into sleep from exhaustion. A beep signaling a text has him peering open his eyes as Kyungsoo checks his phone.

“Hyung!” He hears Kyungsoo call and Jongin’s extra weight leaves him. “Just wanted to remind you of my friend’s coming backstage sometime later.” Their manager grunts and moves on to check on Yixing.

Jongin takes the moment to step in. “I thought we were your only friends,” he says passively and laughs while jumping away from Kyungsoo’s extended arm.

Jongdae rolls over from his back to his stomach and buries his face into his arms, ready to nap during their two hour break. However, three seconds away from sleep, he feels someone tapping his side with their foot.

“Jongdae-hyung,” he hears Sehun whine. “Can you sneak out to the food booths in the main hall later and grab me some food.”

“Why can’t you get it yourself?” Jongdae moans, swatting Sehun’s foot away.

“Because I’m too tall and the fans will notice me immediately, even I’m covering my face.”

Jongdae briefly wonders why Sehun can’t just get one of the staff to do it until he remembers the diet they’re supposed to be on.

“Just give me the money later, Hunnie.” He says reluctantly.

Jongdae can practically hear Sehun’s grin. “Thanks, hyung. I’ll get Lay-hyung to go with you later.”

He hums in response and lets himself be pulled into a power nap.

Several hours later, Jongdae’s covering his face with a face mask, hoodie, and thick (fake) glasses, courtesy of Sehun, and slips out of the backstage area with Yixing in tow.

They enter an empty corridor and walk towards the loud sound of people milling around the main hall of the concert stadium. Yixing splits up with him there, murmuring a quick “I’ll grab the food, you grab the drinks” before taking off, keeping his head low.

Jongdae spots a line for drinks and quietly takes a spot, focusing his attention to his phone so others don’t notice him. In his peripheral he can see a few fans that are male and he sighs in relief, knowing that he won’t stand out too much. The line slowly inches forward and he preoccupies himself by checking his private twitter that he had neglected all day.

Pointless updates fill his screen until he gets to a series of tweets from less than an hour ago.

@suholy522: We’ve arrived safely to the stadium! Only 4 more hours of waiting…

[Byunster92 Retweeted] @xiurista90: sail, sail, sail to chen’s heart @DJ_PCY61

@DJ_PCY61: @xiurista90 t(<.<)t

Jongdae laughed to himself and quickly tucked his phone away when he realized it was his turn.

With a quiet voice he ordered, and made sure to get a Sehun only a size medium for putting him into such a stressful situation. He thanked the cashier when he received his drinks and moved to the side next to a wall.

To: Xing-ge

Meet me by the men’s restroom when you get the food.

Just as he’s closing his phone, a tall figure bumps into him and Jongdae instinctively tries to stabilize the arm with the drinks, and hears the clatter of two phones dropping.

“, sorry.” The person says and Jongdae freezes, refusing to look up. He knows that voice. He hears it every Wednesday and Friday online. The deep familiarity of it causes him to go silent. DJ PCY.

“Uh,” Jongdae gets out, “it’s fine.” He hopes that his voice isn’t too recognizable just talking.

“Are your drinks okay?” DJ PCY asks and Jongdae nods his head refusing to look up. Seemingly satisfied, DJ PCY grabs his phone from the ground and walks away quickly, throwing a “Sorry, I have to go, I’m in a hurry” over his shoulder. Jongdae looks up after the voice disappears only to see the figure of a tall man with silver hair peeking out under a snapback and a plaid shirt.

His ears are kind of big, Jongdae muses to himself before it settles in that he just met DJ PCY in one of the most awkward ways possible. He’s mentally freaking out when Yixing taps on his shoulder, throwing him a worried look.

“You alright, Dae?”

Jongdae sighs, quickly putting himself back together. “Yeah, I’m fine. Someone just bumped into me, that’s all. “He picks his phone up on the ground and frowns when he sees the case.

Yixing looks at it too, confused. “That’s not your phone?”

“Must be the other guys.” Jongdae says after a moment. “My phone’s locked anyways, he won’t be able to see it’s mine. I’ll sort it out after the concert.”

Yixing reluctantly agrees, still eyeing the phone. Jongdae pulls him away and they quickly make their way back to the backstage side entrance.

+++

“Yah! Park Chanyeol! I’ve been waiting for the last five minutes, where were you.” Baekhyun’s loud voice pierces through the crowd of fangirls.

Chanyeol huffs, feeling like he just ran a mile. “I told you guys I was going to the bathroom, you couldn’t even wait for me?”

“I smelled popcorn.”

Chanyeol looks at the half empty container in Baekhyun’s hand and rolls his eyes. “Give me some.” He says holding his hand out.

Baekhyun swats at it. “You snooze you lose, it’s all mine now.”

Chanyeol scowls at the shorter and looks around for Minseok and Joonmyun. A few minutes later they appear, merging through the crowd.

“Where were you hyung?” He says to Minseok, looking at a slightly frazzled Joonmyun.

“We got lost looking for some coffee. I texted you a thousand times, why didn’t you answer?” replies Minseok.

“It must be on silent…” Chanyeol checks his phone. Or what he thought was his phone. “This isn’t… mine?” He says to no one. The lock screen is a picture of a stage and lights, but otherwise gives no information as to whose phone it is. Its password protected too, so he has no way of contacting the owner.

“I can call your phone for you.” Baekhyun says, already dialing.

“Thanks,” Chanyeol says, thinking back to the man he had bumped into earlier.

+++

Jongdae looks at the phone forlornly. Out of all the ways he had to meet DJ PCY, he had to meet him in the most awkward way outside of a bathroom. And to top it off they had switched phones.

He hears their stage director calling for a final rehearsal and tosses the phone into his bag, just missing a call from a contact named Baekhyunnie.

+++

A little over an hour before the show, Baekhyun gets a text from Kyungsoo to meet him at one of the employee entrances. The four of them make their way quickly, dodging the fangirls who are running to their seats.

Instead of Kyungsoo meeting them, it’s Exo’s manager and Joonmyun takes the opportunity to introduce them (and possibly market, but that’s just a hope).

“Hello! We’re the friends of Kyungsoo-ssi and run the K-pop podcast Happiness, Delight, Hallyu. It’s nice to meet you.” Joonmyun says enthusiastically and the other three smile nervously to the manager.

Exo’s manager chuckles at Joonmyun’s enthusiasm and leads them in, talking to Joonmyun more about the podcast.

As soon as Kyungsoo comes into Baekhyun’s vision, Baekhyun shouts and runs up to him, jumping on his back. “Kyungsoo, your supreme rulers have arrived!” he says loudly. Jongin and Sehun hear this and start cracking up in the corner until Kyungsoo motions at them to stop. He peels Baekhyun off his back and playfully swats at his head.

“Who are you calling my supreme ruler when I make more money than half you do in a year?” He questions jokingly.

Baekhyun pouts exaggeratedly, “No need to rub your fame in, Soo. I was still more popular than you in high school.”

Kyungsoo takes a jab at him before moving onto Chanyeol. “Are you here to remember when you peaked in life too?” He says, grinning. Chanyeol laughs and pulls the younger into a hug.

“You’re still as short as ever. Don’t most idols wear insoles?” Chanyeol says and Kyungsoo hits his arm.

“He’s wearing insoles right now,” comes a voice and Chanyeol stops breathing for a second. “He’s just short.”

“Shut up, Jongdae.” Kyungsoo says, glaring at the oncoming figure.

Jongdae mocks hurt, “No need to be so rude.”

Chanyeol can feel Baekhyun and Minseok’s stares burrowing into the back of his mind and he pulls out the phone in his pocket to ask for a quick picture, before he realizes that he doesn’t have his own phone.

Jongdae’s eyes zero in on his hand and Chanyeol freezes. “Hey…” Jongdae says after a moment. “That’s my phone.”

Chanyeol’s mouth gapes for a moment until his mind processes what Jongdae just said. “You’re the guy I bumped into earlier?” he asks incredulously.

Jongdae nods his head.

“Sorry about that, again.” Chanyeol apologizes, pulling off his hat with his free hand. “I’ll just… give this to you then. I’m Chanyeol, by the way. Park Chanyeol.”

Jongdae smiles at the taller man and accepts his phone back.

“I’m Kim Jongdae. Nice to properly meet you, Chanyeol.”

A/N: AHHHHHH. Sorry this took long to get out, I just ended finals yesterday. I'll be free for the next 3 weeks until I begin summer classes.

Also, I watched both Glory Day and Pure Love recently and wow. Thanks for all the feelings Junmyeon & Kyungsoo. There were a lot of feelings.

I'll see you all soon!