Oh , Chanyeol thought Jongdae, what a cute name.

Baekhyun coughs into his sleeve and Chanyeol blinks, noticing the amused expression on Jongdae’s face.

“Out loud, ” Baekhyun murmurs.

Ah.

“I mean,” Chanyeol says loudly, “cu-quite interesting name! So different from your stage name!” He can hear Minseok snickering in the background and mentally prepares his grave.

Jongdae amused grin only grows. “Thanks, I guess?”

“So!” Chanyeol starts off, desperate to get rid of the heat he feels growing in his ears. “My phone, then?” 

Jongdae nods and walks to a bag off to the side. Baekhyun creeps up next to Chanyeol and elbows him, far too entertained by the turn of events.

“You know, Jongdae-ssi,” Baekhyun quips excitedly, “Chanyeol here is a big fan of yours.”

“Baek-” Chanyeol gets cut off.

“Is that so?” Jongdae says, finally returning the phone. “Just call me Jongdae, I imagine you guys are my age if you went to school with Kyungsoo.”

“Unfortunately…” Kyungsoo mumbles as one of the makeup artists touches up on him and pulls him away to fix his hair.

Chanyeol looks around for his teammates. Joonmyun is happily speaking with the manager and another member of the band, Jongin. Minseok is looking at some backstage equipment and asking questions to a sound crew member. No one available to save him from Baekhyun, unfortunately.

“It’s true, Jongdae,” Baekhyun says his name with emphasis. “He talks about you on our podcast all the time.” Jongdae chuckles and raises an eyebrow to that.

“All the time, huh?” He muses. “Kyungsoo did mention you guys have a podcast. I’ve heard a few episodes.”

Oh God… Chanyeol thinks, hoping Jongdae hadn’t heard any of him talking about Chen.

“Not all the time…” Chanyeol laughs. “Only when there’s news or someone comments about him, really…” He trails off awkwardly.

Chen only smiles, lip corners pulling up. “I hope you only say good things then.”

“Chanyeol only every has the best comments for you,” Minseok says, coming back from his own conversation. “You don’t even know half the things I have to cut out when he starts talking about you.”

Chanyeol’s face heats up, ears going red once again. “Hey! Don’t make up stuff like that.” He says defensively. Sure, he can get a little carried away, but it’s never that bad.

Minseok only winks at Jongdae and says, “Sure” passively, if only to appease Chanyeol. Jongdae winks back and turns his attention to his recently recovered phone for a moment. Minseok takes the time to inform Chanyeol and Baekhyun of his findings.

“The equipment here is amazing,” he starts off. The other two can feel the excitement radiating off of him. “The SR systems they use is different from what we use, of course they’re for different things, but I would love to be able to work on something as large scale as this, especially with the technology they’re using.”

Chanyeol and Baekhyun smile, knowing how big of a deal it is for the elder to be able to see the inner workings of live concert such as this. They’ve witnessed him geek out over some the mechanics of an in-ear monitor he was studying on for class once in their early days of HDH. The audio engineer freaking out over small equipment never failed to amuse the rest of the crew.

Minseok is whisked away again by someone holding microphones and Baekhyun turns to the taller.

“Do you want to head out to our seats now or wait a bit?” He asks.

“And leave me so soon?” Chen’s voice cuts in, voice filled with mock hurt. There’s a stylist by his side fixing his outfit and Chanyeol tries not to stare at the skin currently showing.

“Uh…” he says lamely. “We can wait a few more minutes, I guess.” He points out Joonmyun still in conversation with the manager, both of them laughing over something.

Baekhyun agrees. “We’ll give them a few moments. I think Minseok-hyung’s noticed the time too,” he says, seeing the elder glancing at the time on his phone every few moments while still in deep conversation with someone.

“You could always watch from backstage?” Jongdae says after a moment.

Chanyeol pushes away thoughts of the singer coming in backstage sweaty in between stages. “And miss the full Exo concert experience?” He says. “We need to be able to report in detail the concert to our lovely listeners.”

Something flashes in Jongdae’s eyes for a moment, but it quickly dies out before Chanyeol could pinpoint it exactly. “Ah, that makes sense.” He says decidedly. “Where are you sitting though?”

Baekhyun tells him where and Jongdae claps excitedly before apologizing to the stylist still fixing something on his shirt. “That’s the area I’m near a lot!” His smile grows. “I’ll be sure to look for you all a lot.” He says, eyes meeting Chanyeol’s for a second. Chanyeol’s heart stops for a second before he pulls himself together.

“I’ll scream extra loudly for you then!” Chanyeol says happily. He then notices Joonmyun handing the manager a card before bowing and walking over too them. Minseok sees as well and excuses himself.

“I think we have to go now,” Baekhyun says sadly. “The concert is meant to start soon anyways and we need to find our seats still.”

Chanyeol frowns to himself and meets Jongdae’s eyes again.

“Hopefully we’ll meet again?” Chanyeol says, trying not to sound too eager.

Jongdae nods as if he’s just decided something and hands his phone out to Chanyeol. “Since you guys are Kyungsoo’s friends and are actually a lot cooler than I expected you to be — no offense ‘Soo if you can hear me — then let’s exchange numbers?”

Chanyeol’s ears definitely heat up then and Baekhyun snatches the phone before he can say anything.

“I’ll put in both of ours,” he says typing away. A second later he takes a selfie to put as the contact picture. A few moments after that he tells Chanyeol took at the phone and before Chanyeol can even pull a proper pose, the phone is down.

“Yah!” Chanyeol protests, “don’t make me look bad!”

Baekhyun tsks instead and hands Jongdae back his phone. The singer glances at his new contacts and laughs when he sees the dumbfounded expression on Chanyeol’s contact photo.

“I’ll message you guys after the concert then. Maybe we can go eat out?” He says, gaze focused more on Chanyeol than Baekhyun.

“Yeah,” Chanyeol agrees. “Let’s eat out some time.”

They smile at each other and Baekhyun fake gags to everyone watching the two.

A/N: Aaand I'm back. Decided to write at the worst time ever as I am preparing transfer apps, but it's all good! Hopefully I'll be back soon with more of this... or something new? :) Also, I'd really appreciate comments guys? It doesn't have to be anything too much, but it really does fuel my will to write more!