pairing: BaekChen
length: 5220 words

Baekhyun sighed in relief when the concert venue finally came into view. His legs and feet ached after trekking non-stop for almost two hours, and he was ready to take a brief break after he picked up his ticket for Zhang Yixing’s concert from the box office. As he drew closer and closer to the venue, several small crowds of girls came into view and Baekhyun’s heart began to pound nervously as he realized how out of place he would be.

He was a foreigner, even though he could technically pass for a native Chinese male with his East Asian features. He was male while most of the gathered fans were female. And he had no idea what he was doing or what to expect, since this was his first concert since arriving in China a month ago, and he was a bit intimidated by the entire process. Knowing that everyone would automatically assume he was Chinese and speak to him in Mandarin, Baekhyun opted to try to blend in and be as unobtrusive as possible to avoid exposing his virtually non-existent Chinese speaking skills.

But the box office was nowhere to be seen, as he looked around in the large blue-tinted glass building where the concert was supposedly being held. There was a notice about Zhang Yixing’s concert in the main hall, but Baekhyun couldn’t read much more beyond the artist’s name. Since he was too afraid to approach any of the other fans, the raven-haired male decided to ask for help from the information desk instead. There were two young women—probably in their late twenties, if he had to guess—sitting behind the counter and they both turned to look at him curiously when he walked up.

“Um, excuse me,” Baekhyun started in slow, shaky Mandarin, “I have a question.”

The woman on the right nodded and motioned for him to continue.

“Zhang Yixing… His concert… Ticket office…” God, he wanted to shrivel up in shame, since he knew he sounded like a caveman right now.

“You’re here for Zhang Yixing’s concert?” the woman asked in English.

Baekhyun let out an audible sigh of relief before also replying in English, “Yes, I bought a concert ticket through the global website, so I need to pick it up. Can you please direct me to the box office?”

“If you go outside, there’s a staircase that will lead you to the building where his concert is being held. The box office is there as well.”

“Okay, thank you so much!” Baekhyun quickly bowed to the woman before power-walking out of the building. He had seen stairs earlier, but hadn’t thought they would lead him to the concert hall. But now that he looked, he could see groups of fans walking up and down the stairs, chatting with each other. Baekhyun kept his head down to avoid making eye contact with anyone as he walked down the stairs, but by the time he arrived at the bottom, he was staring wide-eyed at all of the posters and banners that were plastered around the venue.

Zhang Yixing’s face was everywhere.

It was like an exhibition; every direction he turned, Baekhyun was face-to-face with a photo of his idol. Words of congratulations and support for Zhang Yixing were printed around his face, and some banners had heavy bags of rice underneath that would later be donated in his name.

He was so in awe of the visual explosion that he almost forgot he needed to pick up his ticket first. The box office was technically beneath the ground, set in a space under the staircase. Luckily, there was no line, so Baekhyun quickly made his way to the box office while digging out his passport and ticket confirmation paper from his backpack.

The woman behind the glass smiled at him and asked in Mandarin, “How may I help you today?”

Baekhyun felt his cheeks flush pink again, not wanting to sound stupid like he had earlier, but he forced himself to slowly answer in Mandarin, “Ticket pick-up…for Zhang Yixing’s concert,” while pushing the ticket confirmation paper through the open slot at the bottom of the glass divider.

She nodded in understanding as she took the page and quickly scanned it. “May I have your passport please?” she then requested in English.

He pushed it through the slot as well and diligently watched as she confirmed his identity before printing out his physical ticket.

“Here you go,” she said, pushing everything back through the slot and into Baekhyun’s waiting hands. “Enjoy the show!”

“Thank you!” He gave her a short bow as he tucked his passport and ticket confirmation paper back into his backpack while deftly holding his physical ticket against his phone screen with his thumb, so as not to accidentally lose it. He would cry if he came so far, was so close to seeing Zhang Yixing perform in the person for the first time, and then missed his chance because he lost his concert ticket at the venue.

He would hate himself for the rest of his life.

Now that he had everything he needed for the concert, Baekhyun could finally take a proper look at his surroundings before the show started in a few hours. The concert hall seemed to span several levels both above and below ground, according to a posted notice that stated when and how the concert attendees would line up. Baekhyun’s rudimentary Mandarin-reading skills were enough for him to recognize that his ticket number would be lining up at five o’clock on Floor B2, which was in about ninety minutes. There was still time to mill around and soak in the atmosphere, so he started snapping photos of the various posters and banners to upload on his SNS account for his friends to see.

Other fans were also taking pictures, so Baekhyun patiently waited for them to finish first before he eagerly started recording a video and walked around the perimeter to showcase just how many banners of Zhang Yixing lined the area. Although he knew he was receiving several stares from other fans, most likely because he was male, Baekhyun ignored them and focused on making sure his hand was steady so that the video wouldn’t end up looking shaky.

After that, he stepped aside to let a group of girls take pictures with the banners and he began aimlessly wandering around. The area wasn’t very large, but it will still early so there weren’t many fans around as well. And these fans’ arms were filled to the brim with fan-site goods. Baekhyun could see most of them holding slogans and posters of Zhang Yixing, which he really wanted as well. But he was too intimidated to walk up to the girls, who were all huddled together in groups of three or four, especially since he knew most of them were Chinese and his Mandarin was too low-level for him to comfortably articulate his thoughts.

He then noticed another male, who was walking with a tall Caucasian girl, and he could hear them speaking in English to each other. They paused by the staircase and continued chatting with each other. Baekhyun spotted the fan-site goods in their arms as well and he stood a few feet away from them, silently debating with himself if he should talk to them since they were foreigners as well—well, at least the girl was a foreigner and both knew English, which he was much more confident in than he was with Mandarin.

Deciding that he needed to go outside of his comfort zone, especially since this entire concert experience was supposed to be an adventure, Baekhyun mustered up the courage and walked up to the two foreigners while politely asking, “Excuse me, where did you get those slogans?”

The other male pointed up to the ground floor and answered, “People were giving away free stuff earlier.”

“I don’t know if they’re still giving them away though, but you can go up and check if they are,” the girl added.

“Oh, okay. Thanks, I’ll do that.” Baekhyun’s mind began racing with worry, since he hadn’t seen anyone giving away free fan-site goods when he arrived and it seemed like there weren’t any other foreigners around except for these two. And if he left them to check for the fan-site goods, he’d end up alone again and still somewhat lost, even though he was at the concert venue.

Seeing how anxious expression on Baekhyun’s face, the other male smiled kindly and offered go with him to check if any fan-site goods were still available

“Really?” the raven-haired male asked, unable to hide the surprise from his face at this stranger’s generosity.

“Sure, I’m not doing anything right now.”

Baekhyun’s gaze briefly flickered to the girl, who just shrugged before turning away, before returning to the other male, who was now gesturing up the stairs. “Okay, thank you! I really appreciate you coming with me!”

“No problem. I’m happy to help!” Once they reached the top of the staircase, the other male pointed to a line of girls. “I guess they’re still handing out free stuff. Let’s get in line.”

While they waited in line, the two males introduced themselves and Baekhyun was ecstatic to hear that Kim Jongdae was also Korean. “I’m from Gyeonggi-do,” the raven-haired male happily shared in his native language.

“Me too! I actually flew in two days ago, just for Zhang Yixing’s concert.”

“Wow,” Baekhyun breathed out in amazement. “I recently moved to China for work, which is why I could come today. It took the rest of my savings for the month to buy a concert ticket and a round-trip high-speed train ticket from Beijing to Changsha, but I think it’s worth the expensive price because I’ve been a fan of Yixing since his debut almost ten years ago.”

“That’s impressive. I’ve only been a fan for five years now, but his music has completely changed my life and he inspired me to pursue music as well,” Jongdae revealed.

“He really is such an inspiring artist,” Baekhyun gushed as he fondly looked at his concert ticket. It was so surreal that he had found another Korean fanboy who seemed to love Zhang Yixing just as much as he did. Throughout his life, Baekhyun couldn’t remember meeting any other fanboys, so he had never outwardly shared this part of his life with anyone else. So this felt cathartic in a way—and it helped that Jongdae was quite good-looking as well.

Their conversation was interrupted when they reached the beginning of the line and the fan-site master passed over several stickers that were printed with Zhang Yixing’s face. Another fan-site master then handed over a few unofficial photocards that looked as professionally made as the album photocards.

In fact, there seemed to be no end to the amount of free fan-site goods that were available to the concert attendees and before long, Baekhyun found his arms overflowing with various items showcasing Zhang Yixing’s face.

“C’mon, let’s find a place to sit,” Jongdae suggested while tipping his head towards the concert hall, since his hands were also full. “I feel like I’m going to drop something if I don’t organize this haul soon.”

“Oh god, yes, please. I didn’t realize there would be so much stuff!” Baekhyun said as he carefully juggled everything, hugging it all close to his chest as they walked down the stairs.

“We got really lucky. Yixing’s fan-site masters didn’t give away as many things for his showcase last year, so even I wasn’t expecting to take home all of this.” Once they reached the bottom, Jongdae spotted an empty bench underneath the staircase and said, “Let’s sit there.”

As he sat down for the first time in almost twenty-four hours, Baekhyun let out a loud sigh of contentment and he stretched backwards, feeling the right knots slightly unravel. He would need an actual masseuse to knead them loose, but that was a worry for another day. At the very least, his legs were finally able to rest and his shoulders didn’t feel as if they were carrying a ton of bricks, since his backpack seemed to get heavier and heavier by the hour. “Man, it’s going to be such a difficult walk after the concert,” the raven-haired male commented as he began to safely tuck the fan-site goods in the laptop pocket of his backpack. Baekhyun hadn’t brought his laptop with him, since he knew it would have been unnecessary weight and he didn’t want to lose it.

“Where’s your hotel?” Jongdae asked while also carefully rolling up a few fan-made posters of Zhang Yixing that he had received during his first round of collecting fan-site goods.

Baekhyun let out a short laugh as he began scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment. “Actually, I didn’t book myself a hotel for the night.”

The shorter male paused and looked at him quizzically.

“I’m planning on going to a sauna that’s open twenty-four hours and staying there for the night, since I’m too cheap to book myself a hotel,” Baekhyun explained, feeling his cheeks grow hot. He probably sounded like an idiot right now. “I’m not getting paid until Monday, so I don’t have much to spend on a hotel anyway.”

“How far is the sauna?”

“It’s,” Baekhyun quickly calculated how much time it had taken him to get to the concert venue, “about two hours away from here if I walk.”

Jongdae sharply inhaled when he heard how far it was. “Have you done it before?”

“No,” the raven-haired male admitted as the tips of his ears began to burn. God, he was definitely getting judged by this good-looking guy. Just his luck. “But it’ll be a good experience, even if it’s not what I imagine it to be!” he added, trying to stay positive throughout the entire ordeal.

“Or you could stay over in my hotel room for free,” Jongdae suddenly offered.

It took Baekhyun a moment to register his response. “Wait, what?”

“The bed in my hotel room is huge. There’s so much space and it’s a bit of a waste for only one person to use it. You’re free to share the room with me and that means you won’t have to pay for the sauna either,” Jongdae pointed out with a grin.

“Wow, that’s so generous of you,” Baekhyun finally managed to verbalize after a few seconds of silence. He had never expected, not once in a million years, that a nice person like Kim Jongdae would offer him a place to stay. It sounded almost too good to be true.

“I’m happy to help out a fellow XingMi,” the shorter male said, beaming brightly. “And it doesn’t sound that fun to walk for another two hours after the concert ends, especially since it’ll get a lot chillier at night.”

“It’s not that bad,” Baekhyun said. But his tone was weak and Jongdae could instantly tell how unenthused the other male was about the prospect of walking for two hours to the sauna.

“How about we meet there after the concert?” Jongdae proposed while pointing at the first banner that Baekhyun had taken a picture of upon arriving at the venue. It depicted Zhang Yixing standing in front of a rainforest, taken from the photobook of his third solo album.

Deciding that he had nothing to lose by agreeing, Baekhyun smiled and nodded. “Okay, sounds good. Wait, which section are you in?”

“I’m in Section A, which is the front of the left half of the pit.”

“Me too!” the raven-haired male exclaimed as he showed his ticket number to Jongdae.

“Is this your first time in the pit?”

Baekhyun vigorously nodded. “I always bought seated tickets when I went to concerts back home in Korea, but I figured I should try the pit at least once and what better concert to do that at than Zhang Yixing’s?”

“It’ll be lots of fun, I promise.” Jongdae then began describing his various experiences in the pit during previous concerts and Baekhyun found himself getting lost in the musical lilt of the shorter male’s voice. It was so soothing to listen to and Baekhyun could feel the tension leaving his body as he sat and nodded along.

What a great way to spend the afternoon before Zhang Yixing’s concert. Baekhyun didn’t think it could get any better than this.

--

Even though his legs were incredibly sore after standing for several hours and his back ached from carrying his heavy backpack all day, Baekhyun’s heart was full of happiness and love for Zhang Yixing. He still couldn’t believe he had actually seen his favorite idol perform live in Changsha, the hometown of Zhang Yixing. It was like a dream.

Baekhyun doggedly walked up the stairs, letting the adrenaline fuel his otherwise weary body, to exit the concert hall. The stark coldness of the night air hit him as soon as he stepped outside and the raven-haired male visibly shivered as he made his way to the first banner of Zhang Yixing he had seen earlier that afternoon, so he could wait for Jongdae.

As he waited, Baekhyun continued reassuring himself that it was okay if the other Korean male ended up forgetting that he had offered the raven-haired male a place to stay for the night. After all, he still had his original plan of walking back to the sauna that was open for twenty-four hours every day—recommended by his co-worker, Wu Yifan, who was worried about Baekhyun not sleeping in proper accommodations and had insisted that he go to this specific sauna, since he knew it was safe and comfortable. Even though it was a two-hour walk and he was freezing, Baekhyun tried not to place too much hope in Jongdae’s extremely kind offer.

But, lo and behold, the shorter Korean male suddenly appeared with a bright smile at the rendezvous point. Baekhyun’s heart almost stopped from how beautiful Jongdae’s smile was and from relief that he was saved. “You made it!”

“Yeah, there was a huge crowd I had to get through, but I’m finally here!” Jongdae panted a bit, clearly fatigued from the exertion, as he pointed to the same empty bench they had sat at before the concert started several hours before. “Can we sit for a moment? My legs are killing me.”

“Yes, please,” the raven-haired male immediately agreed. “Mine hurt so much. I’m honestly so glad you’re letting me stay over, because I don’t think I could survive walking another two hours, especially in this cold. Thank you again,” Baekhyun gratefully added.

“Of course!” Jongdae beamed. “A hotel beats a sauna any day and like I said earlier, there’s plenty of space to share. So what did you think of the concert?”

Baekhyun perked up and immediately gushed, “It was perfect! Zhang Yixing is such an amazing performer, and to see him live and up-close in the pit was so magical! I never imagined that I would ever get to go to one of his solo concerts, so this is a dream come true.” He sighed happily as he recalled seeing the artist dancing on stage, just ten feet away from where Baekhyun had been standing in the audience. “I won’t ever forget this experience.”

Jongdae smiled, seeing how elated the other male was about his first concert in China. “And how was being in the pit for the first time?”

“It actually wasn’t that bad,” Baekhyun answered with a thoughtful expression adorning his youthful face. “The fans weren’t that pushy. I’ve heard so many horror stories about being in the pit, but everyone was really nice and even though I’m kind of short, I still had a really good view of Yixing. And I didn’t realize just how close I was until the end of the show, when everyone left and I saw the edge of the standing section.”

“It was a bit stuffier where I was, near the middle, but I can’t complain since I was still able to record some great videos from my spot.”

“We should share fan-cams with each other when we get to the hotel,” Baekhyun proposed excitedly. “I’d love to see how your view was, since you were closer to Yixing than I was. That is, if you’re okay with that,” he hastily added, not wanting to come off too strong.

Jongdae chuckled. “I’d love to swap fan-cams. The more, the merrier!” He then checked his watch for the time and noticed that it was already past nine o’clock. “Oh man, it’s getting late. Let’s head back to the hotel now.”

“Yeah, let’s go. It’s way too cold outside.” Baekhyun shivered again as he slowly stood up, his joints screaming in pain from the lack of proper rest for the past twenty-four hours. “How long will it take us to get to your hotel?”

“About twenty minutes,” Jongdae answered as he started leading the way to the subway station.

“Oh, thank god.”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty easy route from here to the hotel. I made sure of that when I booked my room.” Once they entered the subway station, which had taken them only a minute to reach since it was underneath the concert hall, Jongdae turned to Baekhyun to ask, “Have you ever used the subway here before?”

The raven-haired male shook his head. “Nope, I haven’t had a chance to figure it out yet. I arrived in Changsha this morning, so I decided to walk here from the high-speed train station instead of taking the subway, since I had so much time.” He then smiled ruefully as he gestured to his exhausted legs. “But I guess I probably should’ve tried learning earlier. My legs can’t take much more walking.”

“It’s really easy to learn,” Jongdae reassured him. “Let me teach you.” So the next few minutes were spent with the shorter male explaining how to change the language settings on the machine to Korean, how to search for the correct stop, and how to pay for the ticket. When the ticket card was dispensed from the machine, Jongdae picked it up and handed it to Baekhyun with a cheery smile. “Here you go!”

Baekhyun looked at him in confusion. “Isn’t that yours?”

“I bought my ticket earlier,” Jongdae revealed, triumphantly flashing his own card.

“Wait! You paid for this one though! I thought you were buying your ticket! Let me pay you back!” the raven-haired male exclaimed as he hurriedly went through his backpack for his wallet.

“Don’t worry about it, Baekhyun. It’s just a few bucks. Besides, you should save your money on something more important.”

“But…” Baekhyun trailed off weakly when Jongdae placed a hand over his to stop him from taking out his wallet.

“C’mon, we should go now. We don’t want to miss the next train.”

Jongdae pulled him forward, showing Baekhyun how to tap his card, and they officially entered the terminal. For some reason, the shorter male didn’t let go and Baekhyun wasn’t sure why, but he also didn’t mind since Jongdae’s hand was warm and he felt secure. So the raven-haired male didn’t say anything and duly followed Jongdae around the terminal until they reached their platform. Even then, Jongdae still didn’t let go.

It wasn’t until they finally boarded the train, which was quite crowded since it was a Saturday night, when the shorter male finally released his hold on Baekhyun so that they could grab onto the poles and steady themselves as the train zipped along its route.

Baekhyun wished they had been able to sit down, because his legs were so tired and because maybe Jongdae wouldn’t have let go of him then.

--

They arrived at the hotel around ten o’clock and immediately dumped their bags on the floor upon entering the room. It really was as spacious as Jongdae had claimed, with a king-sized bed and a large couch, and there was still ample room to dance around if they had the energy to do so. They animatedly talked as they washed up and changed into pajamas while also marveling over their free fan-site goods and watching each other’s fan-cams.

By eleven o’clock, Baekhyun was perched on the couch as he patiently waited for his videos of the concert to upload onto his cloud storage system. Meanwhile, Jongdae crawled onto the left side of the giant bed, slipping under the thick white duvet.

When a loud yawn escaped the shorter male’s mouth, Baekhyun turned back and smiled apologetically at him. “You can sleep first. I’ll turn off the lights when I’m finished. It’ll only take a few more minutes, I promise.”

“Nah, it’s—” Another yawn interrupted Jongdae’s response. “It’s fine. I can wait for you. It’s not even that late.”

“We’ve had a really long day though,” Baekhyun sensibly pointed out. “I know I’m exhausted and the only reason I’m staying up a bit longer is because I know I’ll hate myself if these videos are somehow lost from my phone for some reason. Better to back them up now, just in case.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” There was a stretch of silence, permeated only by the sniffling sounds from Baekhyun’s ice-cold nose, which caused Jongdae to say, “At least come to bed and back up your videos in the warmth. You’re going to get sick at this rate.”

Even though he could feel his cheeks get hot, Baekhyun kept his expression neutral and his voice steady as he replied, “Don’t worry about me. I’m almost done—”

“Baekhyun, I didn’t offer you a warm and comfortable place to sleep just so you could fall sick anyway,” Jongdae said, a note of exasperation coloring his tone. “You really don’t have to be shy.”

“I know,” the raven-haired male mumbled with his head tilted down, his fringe falling over his eyes. “You’ve just been really nice to me throughout this entire adventure, and I feel a bit guilty for intruding and using this nice room for free.”

A lopsided smile appeared on Jongdae’s chiseled face as he looked fondly at the other male who was clearly embarrassed. “It’s honestly okay. Seriously, look at how big this room is,” he said, his arm traveling in a wide sweeping gesture to indicate the large size of the living space. “This is more than enough for one person. You’re not intruding at all, especially since I’m the one who chose to invite you here in the first place. If I really didn’t want you here, I wouldn’t have offered to bring you with me earlier.” Using his right hand, Jongdae patted the empty side of the soft mattress. “This space is all yours.”

Baekhyun looked back and when he saw the earnest expression on the other male’s face, he decided to relent and let his heart take the lead instead of his head. Besides, nothing was going to really happen. As soon as his videos were properly saved in his cloud storage system, Baekhyun was going to knock out and let his weary body properly rest for the first time in over twenty-four hours. Any other time, he probably would have stayed up all night, frantically worrying about the sleeping arrangement, but not this time. The bed was so big that the two males might as well have been sleeping on separate mattresses.

So there was nothing to worry about.

He kept thinking this as he stood up and smoothed down his oversized shirt. Baekhyun then turned, but away from the bed, to Jongdae’s confusion. “I’m going to turn off the light,” the raven-haired male explained, gesturing to the light switch next to the door of the room, when he saw the other male’s perplexed expression.

“Oh, okay. Thanks!”

“No problem.” Within a few seconds, Baekhyun switched off the lights, plunging the room into complete darkness. For some reason, the absolute absence of light was mildly comforting. Even though the room layout was unfamiliar, Baekhyun didn’t activate the flashlight function on his phone as he slowly made his way to the bed, using his hands and feet to feel for the wall as a guide.

A minute later, he was properly tucked in bed, his phone and glasses placed on the bureau next to him. By now, his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so he could just barely make out Jongdae’s slim silhouette at the other side of the king-sized bed. There was a giant gap between the two and Baekhyun made sure to pack down the duvet around him, so the quasi-barrier was even more defined.

There would be no funny business happening tonight.

With his body growing comfortably warm by the second, Baekhyun yawned loudly and found himself slowly drifting off as he finished backing up the rest of his videos.

Today was a good day.

He got to see Zhang Yixing, his favorite singer, perform live.

He got to explore parts of Changsha for a bit on his way to the venue.

He got to receive a lot of free goodies from fellow kind-hearted, generous fans.

He got to become friends with an amazingly nice, good-looking fan named Kim Jongdae.

And he got to sleep in a real bed instead of the hard floor of a sauna, thanks to Kim Jongdae.

Yes, today was filled with memorable experiences that Baekhyun would carry with him for the rest of his life. And the now-saved videos would allow him to relive Zhang Yixing’s concert whenever he wanted to.

With that thought drifting through his head, Baekhyun fell fast asleep.

--

Briefly regaining consciousness, since his mind was buzzing with dreams and thoughts, the raven-haired male cracked opened his eyes and saw that it was still pitch black. Deciding he should catch a few more hours of rest, Baekhyun sighed in contentment as he snuggled closer and basked in the warmth of the bed. “So nice,” he murmured, burying his face against the mattress. His breathing evened out again as he went back to sleep and returned to dreamland.

Jongdae smiled as he slightly shifted to make sure Baekhyun was resting comfortably against his chest. He had been awake for the past half hour, ever since the other male had unconsciously moved across the bed and latched onto Jongdae’s warm body. The shorter male wasn’t going to complain about the situation, since he thought Baekhyun was extremely cute, and he had just loosely draped his left arm around the raven-haired male while drawing him a bit closer.

It had been lonely, coming to China by himself, and Jongdae had missed intimate human interactions. He certainly hadn’t expected Baekhyun to use him as a pillow, but he also wasn’t going to complain about the comforting situation.

Inviting Baekhyun to stay with him for the night had been a completely spontaneous decision, an offer that most other people would not have made, but as he felt the raven-haired male’s steady heartbeat against his chest, Jongdae mentally thanked himself for being a bit impulsive and daring. Byun Baekhyun felt like the piece he had been missing in his life and he wondered if the other male felt the same way. Jongdae really hoped so.

Regardless, at least he had tonight to relax in Baekhyun’s warm embrace.

♈♈♈